Romelu Lukaku was subjected to an array of racial remarks just after Inter Milan was defeated by Manchester City in the Champions League final.
The forward entered the game in the second half as his team was defeated 1-0 in Turkey. Rodrigo scored the lone goal. He first blocked Federico Dimarco’s header in front of the goal and afterwards created a fantastic opportunity for himself.
Rodrigo’s goal in the second half implied Pep Guardiola’s team would win the Champions League for the first time in their history. However, the game was marred after the final whistle when racial slurs were made in response to some of Romelu Lukaku’s earlier Instagram posts about his performance.
A netizen uploaded a picture of a gorilla to mock him.
Romelu Lukaku was referred to as black money and told to retire. He was accused of becoming a “culture of defeat.”
Gorilla and monkey emoticons along with a picture of the former were posted to attack the player.
A user told the football star to go back to the jungle and used multiple apes, watermelons and chicken legs emoticons.
Another commented with ‘multiple monkeys and middle finger’ emojis.
Romelu Lukaku had earlier discussed the persistent issue of racism in football with The Mirror and stated that things need to change at the top of clubs, countries, and the game.
“I think you need more diversity in positions of power, at the top. That’s where you need to start, that’s where we need to have diversity. People of colour, put them at the top of every boardroom. And that’s when the change will start,” he said.
He further continued, “That’s why, for example, in our Belgian federation, that’s where they started, they’re trying to put in people of colour, different sexualities and stuff like that. So that every situation that can happen, whether it is racial or any other form or type of discrimination, can be attacked straight away.”
He added, “If you put people of different colours in positions of power, I think things would get taken care of much faster than now.”