Euro 2020: Twitter removes tweets, suspends accounts after fans racially abuse England players

New Delhi: Micro-blogging website Twitter has removed over 1000 tweets and permanently suspended a number of accounts after they were found engaging in racial abuse of England players after the Three Lions lost the Euro 2020 final against Italy.

Italy ended England’s dream to win the Euro 2020 here at the Wembley Stadium on Sunday (local time). Azzurri defeated England 3-2 on penalties after the normal 90-minute action had finished at 1-1 and even extra time was not able to break the deadlock.

Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka all missed the chance to net goals in the penalty shootouts. The English players were then abused on social media.

“The abhorrent racist abuse directed at England players last night has absolutely no place on Twitter. In the past 24 hours, through a combination of machine learning-based automation and human review, we have swiftly removed over 1000 Tweets and permanently suspended a number of accounts for violating our rules — the vast majority of which we detected ourselves proactively using technology. We will continue to take action when we identify any Tweets or accounts that violate our policies,” a Twitter spokesperson told ANI.

“We have proactively engaged and continue to collaborate with our partners across the football community to identify ways to tackle this issue collectively and will continue to play our part in curbing this unacceptable behaviour — both online and offline,” the spokesperson added.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also condemned the “appalling” racial abuse of players on social media following the Three Lions’ loss in the Euro Cup final against Italy.

The British Prime Minister said England players “deserve” to be lauded for their heroics and shouldn’t be “racially abused” on social media.

“This England team deserve to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media. Those responsible for this appalling abuse should be ashamed of themselves,” Boris Johnson tweeted.

England’s Football Association in the early hours of Monday morning also condemned racist abuse of players. “The FA strongly condemns all forms of discrimination and is appalled by the online racism that has been aimed at some of our England players on social media,” an official statement read.

“We could not be clearer that anyone behind such disgusting behaviour is not welcome in following the team. We will do all we can to support the players affected while urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible,” it added.