Britain’s most successful Olympic track athlete, Sir Mo Farah, says he has received ‘shocking’ abuse on social media and insists the racists need to be shamed publicly for their online behaviour.
The quadruple Olympic gold medallist says he has often been told to ‘go home’ by online trolls and believes the problem is growing worse.
He told the BBC that now big tech firms, like Twitter and Instagram, need to do more to tackle the tide of abuse.
Sir Mo Farah is one of Britain's greatest athletes, but he has been abused online by racists
‘It seems like it’s getting worse in my honest opinion because back in my time, shall we say, there was never as much social media. I’ve had some shocking ones, certain things to say, ‘you don’t belong’. I’ve had quite a bit.’
Asked if he has ever had people say ‘go back home, he replied: ‘I’ve had that before, yeah.’
‘To me this is my home,’ he added. ‘I’ve always thought about it.’
Farah was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, lived as a refugee in Djibouti after his family fled the war-torn country, and moved to Britain aged eight, where he developed his passion and talent for running.
He spoke out after England footballers, Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford, received vile racist abuse online when England lost in the Euro 2020 final to Italy on penalties.
Farah won four Olympic golds medals and six World Championship golds, plus many records
The trio all missed their spot kicks and were immediately abused via their social media accounts.
It has since emerged that England’s 26-man squad has received a deluge of abusive and hateful messages during the four-week tournament. The analytics company, Crisp, estimated the players’ accounts were targeted with 12,500 abusive messages from 10,000 accounts.
However, the racism aimed at the penalty takers following a highly successful tournament, albeit one that ended in disappointment, has shocked the nation with the Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling on social media firms to ‘up their game’ and deal with the racist trolls.
Nineteen-year-old Bukayo Saka was consoled by Gareth Southgate as penalties came back to haunt the manager who missed his spot kick as a player at the semi-finals of Euro 1996
In online abuse, one user wrote, 'Foreigners are stupid,' seemingly choosing to ignore that Saka was born in Ealing, west London
