MANCHESTER, England — All of England had been captivated at the prospect of being crowned European soccer champions for the first time, and the national team’s wrenching defeat on Sunday tore a collective wound — in more ways than one. Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka were among the five England players who braved the pressures of the penalty shootout at the end of the championship. But they all missed the mark, unleashing a surge of racist abuse on social media against the players, all of whom are young Black men. In the early hours of Monday, Manchester police were called to Withington, in the south of the city, where Mr. Rashford was born, after receiving reports that racist graffiti had been scrawled on a monochrome mural of the soccer star. The vision of a multiracial, multiethnic Britain that the England team came to symbolize as it fought its way to the final, emphasized by its stance on antiracism with players taking a knee before each game, appeared to vanish.

Source: New York Times July 13, 2021 20:15 UTC