Met Police want to find this man and four others
(Picture: Metropolitan Police)Metropolitan Police have released images of five men they want to find after racial abuse was hurled at a steward during an England World Cup qualifying match at Wembley last year.
During the October 12 match against Hungary at Wembley Stadium a supporter was arrested for shouting racial abuse at the steward.
This led supporters in the away part of the ground, who were from Hungary and Poland, to become violent and assault police officers, Metropolitan Police said on Wednesday.
Officers have analysed footage from the day and identified five men they want to trace in connection with the “abhorrent behaviour” during that match, Detective Constable Dawid Ratajczak said.
“This was a challenging police operation on the day of the match where several arrests were made.
“This type of behaviour has no place in football or wider society and these people must be held responsible for their actions.”
More than 100 hate crimes were recorded at London’s football stadiums between June 2021 and May 2022, the Standard revealed earlier this year.
Sixty were racially or religiously aggravated, as well as 18 incidents of violence which were flagged as hate crimes – including one where the victim was injured.
While there has been an increase in the number of racism arrests made at football grounds over the past six seasons, campaigners have called for more to be done to tackle online racism directed at footballers on social media.
A total of 11 people were arrested last summer for racially abusing England players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka following England’s defeat to Italy in the European Championship final.
But more than 600 social media posts were reported to police for racist and offensive content following the game, with 207 of them deemed to be criminal.
Earlier this year, the Home Office announced football banning orders would be extended to cover online hate offences.
This means online trolls could be banned from attending games for up to 10 years in England and Wales.
