Lukaku: 'Racism in football is at an all-time high'

In the eve of EURO 2020, friendlies, injuries and Covid-19 cases dominate the headlines, but one other topic refuses to go away – racism. It has been the only dominant topic (apart from Covid 19) throughout last season, when an enormous cases of social media abuses were aimed at black players from all five top European leagues. And the England National football team decided to take a knee before every game, in support of „Black lives matter“ movement, and shockingly, received boos from their own supporters.

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One in the long list of abused players, Romelu Lukaku from Inter Milan talked to CNN Sports ahead of Belgium’s opening EURO game against Russia on Saturday. The former Manchester United striker, who has received racial abuse a number of times throughout his football career, notably when he was the subject of monkey chants from Calgiari fans in 2019, believes that three years after the incident, the situation in football is even worse.  

"I think racism in football right now is at the all-time high. Why? Because of social media now as well. I understand why people like Thierry Henry are blocking social media because it's easy, you can track somebody down ..The social media companies, they have to do more for me" Lukaku told CNN Sport.

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Serie A’s best striker believes that there is no real progress in the race issue, even with a number of campaigns in every country, because „there is no real action taken“. His proposal is for the leagues to start doing things with the players.  

"For me, to be honest, I don't really see progress. I see a lot of campaigns and all that stuff, but really until there is no real action taken. In Italy, when it happened to me directly, there was something that was done because the Serie A really communicated with me and my team. And we basically tried to educate people in Italy that it is not good, because in Italy, it is a beautiful country and I've been accepted really well by everybody, home fans, away fans. I think when that happened, it changed. That's what all the leagues should do. They should talk to the players and basically try to start doing things with the players and with their teams" said the Belgian.

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Lukaku made an interesting point by comparing the failed formation of Super League and racism, stating that to him, it’s the same platform, but fans protested over the league and not the race issues.

"When the Super League started, people were very quick to shut it down on social media ... people and fans were going on the streets to protest. I'm the same, I didn't want it to happen. But why don't you put the same energy when it's about racism as well? Because it's the same platforms, basically" explained Lukaku.