Kyle Walker of Manchester City arrives at the stadium prior to the Premier League match against Crystal Palace. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Kyle Walker has hit back after a post on social media appeared to depict him as a suicide bomber, an act which Man City also condemned.
In a statement on the official Man City website the club said:
Man City strongly supporting Kyle Walker after online racist abuse
Manchester City strongly condemns the racist abuse that Kyle Walker was subject to online following last night’s fixture.
We refuse to tolerate discrimination of any kind, regardless of whether that be in stadiums or online.
We will be offering Kyle our full support following the disgusting treatment he has received.
The post came after City’s Champions League defeat against Juventus, a game which pundit, Stan Collymore, suggested could precede “something quite spectacular” for the club.
Unfortunately, social media being what it is, there seems to be little control on what gets posted and subsequently seen.
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Moderation teams, despite the protestations of the social media companies themselves, rarely seem to operate correctly.
If they did, there would be huge question marks as to how a picture such as this would be allowed to get through:
??? Kyle Walker on Instagram: “This is unacceptable”.
Man City are prepared to support Walker, as their statement confirmed. pic.twitter.com/ghtr2D5PAM
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 13, 2024
Of course, this isn’t the first time that a black player has had to put up with abuse of one sort or another on social media, Brennan Johnson deactivating his social accounts earlier in the campaign because of abuse from Tottenham supporters.
Short of clubs and players completely taking themselves off of all forms of social – which in this day and age clearly isn’t practical – they remain in the hands of those who own the likes of Tik Tok, X, Instagram and others.
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The depiction of Walker as a suicide bomber is a particularly vile and insensitive one, and if any good can come of such a disgusting act, perhaps tighter controls will be forced upon social media companies moving forwards, with financial penalties and more in place to act as a true deterrent.
Furthermore, genuine life-changing punishments for the perpetrators of such posts are also likely to help in the fight to clean up social, because at the moment it’s in a sorry state.