Wilfried Zaha, abuse and the problem with no solution

In January 1995, Eric Cantona launched a kick at the chest of Crystal Palace supporter Matthew Simmons. The assault provoked predictable outrage from media and public. It led the news on both BBC and ITN the following day. The Sun afforded it 12 pages of coverage, while the Mail on Sunday sent reporters to Marseille to rake through Cantona’s childhood in search of new angles. The News of the World claimed that a speech impediment might have been to blame. Of course they did.

Former Manchester United players queued to offer their condemnation. Tommy Docherty and Alex Stepney believed that Cantona should be sacked instantly, while Shay Brennan – who won the European Cup with United in 1968 – chose the quasi-philosophical angle. Cantona – Brennan felt – had betrayed Sir Matt Busby’s grand vision for the club.

But there was one circle that didn’t rush to chastise Cantona’s actions or call for severe punishment: current players. Teammate Gary Pallister spoke out about the ‘vile abuse’ Cantona would receive during every away game and mentioned a day the squad had enjoyed at the races. It had turned sour when Cantona was spat on by a member of the public.

Most instructive were the voices from outside Manchester United. ‘When Cantona went into the crowd to sort that fella out who was giving it to him, I reckon most of the professionals were thinking, “Good on you Eric,” wrote former Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler in his autobiography. Aston Villa midfielder Andy Townsend was far more candid, even at the time: “I don’t feel an ounce of pity for that bastard supporter. I bet his arsehole dropped on the floor when Eric came over.”

For Fowler and Townsend – and many of their peers – Cantona was not the cause of the problem but a symptom. Footballers, now celebrities as well as sportspeople, had become the targets of unacceptable abuse. To make matters worse, this abuse was fair game. But push people so far, and fail to protect them, and don’t be surprised when they crack. There was a very real shared feeling among footballers of ‘this could have been me’. Cantona was just the fall guy.

English football may have changed in a thousand different ways in the 28 years since Cantona’s kung-fu kick, but footballers are not treated any better by supporters. Racism at matches has largely been eradicated – not least to society in general policing the problem far more effectively – but the arena has simply changed.

You no longer need to surge down 20 rows of a stand to abuse a footballer – but the vitriol hasn’t reduced. If the cliche is that social media is full of faceless trolls who hide behind anonymity, there are plenty who seem unconcerned about revealing their identity.

This week, Wilfried Zaha posted on Instagram to address the most vile abuse he had received over the previous few days. ‘For all the people taking it one step further and being racist and wishing death on my family, I wish you and your families the best too,’ Zaha wrote. ‘PS my life is still good despite your hate xx.’

There is something deeply tragic about Zaha having to make a weak joke about such awful abuse. It shouldn’t need emphasis, but he is referring to criminal acts. And yet Zaha’s only response is to desperately try and see the funny side of a situation that contains absolutely no humour. That can only happen when such acerbic abuse occurs so regularly that it is normalised. Just another day, getting death threats and being taunted on the basis of the colour of your skin. Imagine for a moment if that were you.

You don’t have to look hard to see hate hiding in plain sight. On Sunday, Twitter user @lcafc, called Luke, posted ‘Well done ref and I hope Zaha dies in a fire’. User @goonerpete, who proudly states that he is a father in his bio, called Zaha a ‘diving c**t’, although he did not bother with the asterisks. ‘I hope you die,’ was the cheery follow-up. Unai – @twofourfours – merely condoned violence, tagging Zaha into a tweet telling the winger that he ‘can’t wait for your legs to be snapped’. Someone called Biswojit opted for a different approach: ‘@wilfriedzaha black ugly u playing like ur shit face cheater nice diving.’

All those tweets remain undeleted, so nobody is remorseful. Presumably all of the above would offer the Richard Keys defence, now passed on to Philip Green (we can drop the sir, now): It was just banter. All’s fair in love, war and football.

Zaha’s crime was to win a penalty against Arsenal and therefore be accused of diving, despite replays showing that the correct decision was made and Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka conceding immediately after the game that he had fouled Zaha. But that’s beside the point. Mentioning the reason for the abuse offers justification – albeit a weak one. But there is no excuse.

Nor too is this about Zaha or Arsenal, although some readers will interpret it as both. They are simply this week’s player and this week’s morons. From Cantona to Zaha and everything in between, only the actors change. The abuse never stops.

Much of this is put down to toxic tribalism, an ‘anything goes’ mentality in support of a football club. But ask any Arsenal player if they side with Zaha or his abusers and their choice would be immediate. Were these season-ticket holders, they would be banned by their club.

Instead, it is evidence of a society in which celebrities – including sportspeople – are a fair target and whose fame or wealth is used as one of the sticks to beat them. Zaha is handsomely paid for what he does, so he must expect to be pushed to the edge.

Then, if he cracks and reacts to supporter or opposition player, we can all wring our hands and loftily pass comment on his lost discipline. We can dig into Zaha’s past and muse on whether it was his childhood that shaped his anger rather than the hundreds of messages wishing ill on his family and racially abusing him. Someone call Columbo.

Social media has created an environment in which abuse has become normalised, but blaming the medium allows for the perpetrators to escape full censure. If there are aspects of Twitter’s landscape that allow for d*cks to be d*cks, most of the problem still lies with the d*cks.

Some footballers will inevitably, eventually leave Twitter and Instagram, and subsequently be accused of moving into an ivory tower. Others employ people to run their accounts, and are then criticised for blandness. A few will snap, on the field or off it, and suffer the consequences.

But if cases such as Zaha are thoroughly depressing, strap in for more bad news: this is never going to stop. Social media companies have proven themselves incapable of effective policing – if you won’t ban Nazis then people abusing footballers is and issue unlikely to be resolved. The game’s stakeholders (clubs, players, governing bodies) regularly plead for propriety, but nothing improves. The beat goes on.

The only answer is self-regulation, but it’s mightily hard to reason with someone who believes it acceptable to wish death upon someone in a public forum. And if you’re relying upon decency to shine through, I’d advise you not to look out the window, turn on the news or log on to social media.

In 1995, Croydon magistrates court heard that Simmons shouted at Cantona: “You f*cking cheating French c**t. F*ck off back to France, you motherf*cker. French b*stard. W*nker.” The language caused a general inhalation of breath in the courtroom. In 2018, another Simmons is sat in his lounge tweeting that he hopes Zaha dies in a fire, just before popping the kettle on and making a cup of tea. When despicable abuse becomes that normalised, we have moved past the point of no return.

Daniel Storey