Bournemouth striker, Antoine Semenyo, has called for racist abusers to he handed more severe punishment after he became a victim of a vile racist abuse at Anfield last week.
The Ghanaian footballer, 25, had been taking a throw-in during his side’s clash with Liverpool on the opening day of the Premier League season when a fan in a wheelchair bombarded him with vile abuse.
While Semenyo reported the incident to referee Anthony Taylor, Merseyside Police escorted the man out of the stadium before arresting him on Saturday.
Mogan, a scouser who has been in a wheelchair his entire life, has since been bailed for three months pending further investigations.
Semenyo, who scored a brace on the night, has now spoken out publicly about the ‘mind-boggling’ abuse he suffered.
‘It was pretty sad to hear to be honest, I feel like in this day and age us players are still getting racially abused and it just doesn’t make sense,’ he told ITV News, ‘we just want to know why it keeps happening.
‘I feel like it was the right thing to do [to report the incident to the referee], I wasn’t going to hide away. I feel like the referee had to know what was going on and if I didn’t say anything it would have played on my mind.
‘I got in at half-time and I was pretty angry to be honest, I got to the realisation of what happened but I just used it as fuel and motivation and those two goals, you could say it came from that.
‘It’s mind-boggling to be honest, the punishment isn’t enough when things like this happen. There has to be great punishment and any players who might have experienced it, don’t shy away from reporting and make sure that the punishment is maximum, it shouldn’t be happening in this day and age.’
When asked what that punishment should be, the footballer replied: ‘Could be jail time, it could be banned from stadiums for life, it could be anything along the lines of that but I feel like there has to be something else done.’
Semenyo has received an outpouring of support since the shocking incident both on and off the pitch.
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