Wolves manager Rob Edwards has revealed that Super Eagles striker Tolu Arokodare had to endure a tough week after he faced racist abuse online after the club’s defeat to Crystal Palace last week.
The Nigerian star was subject to racist abuse online from several accounts after missing a penalty as Wolves fell to their 20th league defeat of the season last weekend.
- Check this: Wolves condemn racist abuse on Arokodare
The West Midlands club condemned the action in a statement released earlier in the week and vowed to work with the relevant authorities to arrest the perpetrators.
Meanwhile, Wolves will return to action later today when they welcome Aston Villa to the Molineux, hoping for a win to spark an unlikely survival.
Edwards reveals stance on racial abuse on Arokodare
Speaking during Thursday’s pre-match press conference, the Wolves boss expressed support for the Super Eagles forward ahead of their clash against Villa.
“It’s been a really difficult week for him. He was upset and angered by it, understandably so”, Edwards revealed.
“We’ve supported him, and I’ve had a few individual chats with him, we’ve spoken about it as a group as well, to make sure that we get around him and support him. Then he’s had overwhelming support from a lot of Wolves fans and other people reaching out, which is really good.
The Premier League have been in touch, so there’s support there, but again, we’re talking about something that we’re having to do far too many times. There have been a number of very high profile instances over this last week, which is really sad.
Since I’ve been a manager, there’s been a number of times when my players have had to deal with this, and the sad thing about it is that all of them have had it before, and that’s really tough to hear”, the former Luton Town manager added.
“The unfortunate thing is that we can’t forget about it, because we’re going to be hearing about it again in the future, there could be someone this weekend, there probably will be, which is so wrong.
Without knowing how certain things happen, how certain accounts are able to be opened or accessed or whatever, I know a lot of the abuse has come from accounts from maybe the other side of the world or somewhere else, and it’s difficult to track these people down.
The authorities and the police know, Tolu will be asked to give a statement at some stage over the next few days, but it becomes difficult to stop that. Without going into the social media companies and the ones that are actually giving them the platform, and whether they can do more – I’m sure they can – then we’ll be hearing a lot more about it”, Edwards concluded.
