Scott McTominay says he has been left stunned by the recent racial abuse directed to some of his Manchester United teammates.
Manchester United midfielder Scott McTominay says he is appalled at the racist abuse directed at his teammates and branded it a ‘disgrace’.
Over the past few weeks, United stars Axel Tuanzebe, Anthony Martial, and Marcus Rashford are some of the players who have suffered racial abuse.
Fresh from scoring a winner against West Ham, McTominay has jumped in defense of his teammates while adding that online trolls are becoming disgraceful.
The 24-year-old admits that criticism is part of football but says it has gotten to another level.
“Yeah, criticism is a part of football. It’s no problem. I’ve been criticized a million times before and I’ll be criticized again for sure. That’s not the problem, at all,” he said to the club’s website.
“The problem is when you start believing what other people say, whether it’s good things or bad things. You just have to keep all the outside noise, especially at this football club, to a bare minimum.”
“You can’t read too much or if there’s good articles about you, bad articles about you, you can’t dive into them with too much detail because you have to have a thick skin in football, as you see with what’s been going on with the racial abuse.”
“It’s a disgrace and that’s the type of people who are on social media saying the things that they’re saying at this moment in time. Honestly, it makes me feel sick coming in seeing Axel the next day after the game. I don’t remember which game it was. But I feel like it’s an absolute shambles and that’s somebody, one of my brothers who I’ve grown up with for a long, long time now, and to see that happen to him is absolutely disgusting.”
Having come through the Red Devils’ academy, McTominay says he sees some of his teammates as brothers and that ethnic differences should never be an issue.
“I just don’t even think about the situation with people having different ethnic backgrounds,” he added.
“I just never would say: ‘I’m white, Axel’s black.’ How are we any different? It’s exactly the same. We’ve grown up through the same school together, we’ve played football together for years, so it infuriates me.”
“It’s a really touchy subject and it’s something that’s hard to talk about in that respect. But I feel like now we are getting to the awareness which it needs to have, because these are my brothers who I’ve played with for years and years, and to see it happening is a shambles. It’s a disgrace.”
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