PAUL POGBA has vowed to fight the vile racist yobs “for the next generation.”
Pogba and Manchester United team-mate Marcus Rashford have both been victims of sick racial abuse after missing penalties for the club in the past week.
1
United chiefs will hold a second meeting with social media bigwigs this week to demand action against the disgusting trolls.
And yesterday Pogba tweeted: “My ancestors and my parents suffered for my generation to be free today, to work, to take the bus, to play football.”
In his tweet, accompanied by a photograph showing him holding his baby alongside portraits of his late father Fassou Antoine and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, he added: “Racist insults are ignorance and can only make me stronger and motivate me to fight for the next generation.”
Rashford’s spot-kick miss in Saturday’s 2-1 Old Trafford defeat to Crystal Palace sparked a disgusting Twitter backlash, with at least four accounts using the ‘N’ word before they were shut down.
Twitter chiefs stress they are stepping up their levels of vigilance, as well as reacting quickly when posts violate their Hateful Conduct policy.
They insist since the start of the year they have increased the number of suspensions on users who open new accounts to get around previous bans by 45 per cent.
There were more than 100,000 of those accounts closed down between January and March this year, most of them within 24 hours of receiving a complaint.
Pogba was abused when he missed his penalty in last week’s 1-1 draw at Wolves, while Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham and Reading’s Yakou Meite have also recently been racially abused on social media.
After the latest abuse, United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer fumed: “We need it to stop, it needs to stop. I’m lost for words.
“We keep having all these ‘No to Racism’ campaigns yet the problem keeps hiding behind fake identities. It’s crazy that we talk about this in 2019.”
Kick It Out also released a statement on Saturday which read: “The vile racist abuse on social media continued today.
“This problem will not go away and needs decisive action — that’s what we’ll be making clear to Twitter when we meet.
“Without immediate and the strongest possible action, these cowardly acts will continue to grow.”
Dan James scored a late leveller against Palace but Roy Hodgson’s men took all three points thanks to David De Gea fumbling Patrick van Aanholt’s shot.
Red Devils winger James says United will treat Saturday’s visit to Southampton as a shot at redemption, after admitting they let themselves — and the fans — down this weekend.
The £18million signing, 21, said: “We should’ve come away with more.
“Unfortunately, they’ve hit us on the break and scored.
“Now, we want to redeem ourselves. This game is something that we’ll look back on and look at what we could’ve done better.
“The Southampton game will be a completely different test and we’ve got to be ready for it.”
