Brentford striker Ivan Toney received a racist message via Instagram on Friday night. The direct message sent by a 23-year-old came after the star striker scored both of his team’s goals against Brighton and Hove Albion to lift the Bees above Liverpool in the Premier League table.
Toney took a screenshot of the racist comment and posted it on his official Twitter account on Saturday. “I wasn’t even going to post this, but I woke up angry…” the player said.
Ivan Toney receives racist insults: reaction of the Club
Brentford released a statement denouncing the DM. “We condemn this discriminatory behavior in the strongest possible terms,” the statement read.
“An attack on one of our players is an attack on all of us. Iván will receive the full support of the Club and the Brentford fans, whom we have already seen condemn the abuse”.
“We expect strong support from the police, legal authorities and Instagram parent company Meta to ensure that the individual involved faces the full force of the law for this despicable hate crime.”
This is at least the second time this year that Toney has had to publicly deal with racism. The striker, along with his teammate Rico Henry, claimed his families were racially abused following their club’s 3-2 win against Everton in May.
Both players tweeted responses to the racist comments at the time. Brentford and Everton also issued statements strongly condemning the incidents.
The Premier League recently announced that they would take a knee again before the start of matches. Starting October 6 and running through Sunday October 16, England’s top-flight players will take a knee to show their unity in the No Room for Racism campaign.
Players have previously taken a knee before each match; however, the decision was made during the offseason to pick certain game days to kneel during the current campaign. This decision was to help create more of an impact during high-profile games.
Photo Credit: IMAGO/Colorsport
