A trio of France players have been subjected to appalling racist abuse following their World Cup final defeat in Qatar.
Les Bleus lost a thrilling, memorable final to Argentina, ultimately being beaten on penalty kicks following a 3-3 draw after extra time. The defeated French squad have now returned to Paris, greeted by thousands of fans, but Aurelien Tchouameni, Kingsley Coman and Randal Kolo Muani have all received sickening racial abuse on social media.
Coman and Tchouameni both missed penalties during the shootout, bringing back painful memories of similar abuse towards England stars Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka following the Euro 2020 final.
The French players have all received numerous racist messages on social media, including monkey and banana emojis. Tchouameni, 22, and Kolo Muani, 24, have limited comments and closed them off respectively, while Coman’s posts remain free to reply to.
A spokesperson for Meta, the company which owns Instagram, as well as Facebook and Whatsapp told the Athletic: “We don’t want racist abuse on Instagram, and we’ve removed the disgusting comments for breaking our rules.
“We also want to help protect people from having to see this abuse in the first place, which is why we’ve developed Hidden Words, a feature that filters offensive comments and DMs, and Limits, which hides comments and DMs from people who don’t follow you, or only followed you recently.
“We’re in touch with players and their teams directly, including since yesterday’s final, to offer them support and help them turn on these tools.”
Deflated France boss Didier Deschamps lamented the physical and psychological impact of an illness within the camp, ahead of Sunday’s final. "The whole squad has been facing a tricky situation for a while now, maybe that had a physical and psychological impact,” he explained.
"But I had no concerns about the players who started the match. They were 100 per cent fit, but we only had four days since the last match so perhaps there is some tiredness.
"That's not an excuse but we didn't show the same energy as previous matches and for the first hour we weren't in the match. In those first 70 minutes or so, we were playing a very aggressive and dynamic opponent and we weren't at the same level for a number of reasons.
"We managed to come back from the dead and made a magnificent comeback from a very difficult situation."
