Prince William has been comforting the three black England football players, who missed penalties in Sunday's European Championships game—and have since been subjected to racist abuse online.
- According to the Mail on Sunday the Duke has had private conversations with Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka.
- As President of the FA he has condemned the online racist abuse and called on social media companies to make changes.
- In other royal news, The Queen leads birthday tributes to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Prince William, who was at the final of the Euros, when England lost to Italy on Sunday night, comforted the England players, sharing his condolences in the changing rooms after the match.
However, the Duke of Cambridge, who is also president of the FA, is said to also be sickened by the online abuse that the England football players have received.
On Sunday night footballers Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka all missed penalties for England and were devasted. However, England's devastation was inflamed by the behavior of a small yet significant subset of fans, who took to social media after the defeat to attack three of the team's black players.
William released a statement this week saying, "It must stop now and all those involved should be held accountable." However, a source also told the Mail on Sunday that William has had private conversations with the players involved and is in talks with the FA about how social media companies can do more to stop this type of behavior on their platforms.
Two days ago footballer Saka, who had been one of the subjects of social media abuse said via Instagram, "To the social media platforms @instagram @twitter @facebook I don’t want any child or adult to have to receive the hateful and hurtful messages that me Marcus and Jadon have received this week. I knew instantly the kind of hate that I was about to receive and that is a sad reality that your powerful platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages.
"There is no place for racism or hate of any kind in football or in any area of society and to the majority of people coming together to call out the people sending these messages, by taking action and reporting these comments to the police and by driving out the hate by being kind to one another, we will win."
In May, William, along with sports stars, boycotted social media, for the weekend, in a bid to condemn online racism and abuse linked to sport. The boycott was a plea to social media companies that more should be done to protect people on their platforms.
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