Arsenal and Leeds have released statements condemning the abuse directed at Nicolas Pepe and Ezgjan Alioski on social media after the pair clashed in yesterday’s 0-0 draw between Arsenal and Leeds United.
The Ivorian received a straight red card from referee Anthony Taylor early in the second half for using his head in a clash with North Macedonia international. It was a moment of rash stupidity that drew the ire of manager Mikel Arteta who later labelled his behaviour ‘unacceptable’.
While many Arsenal fans mirrored the boss’ frustration on social media, a small minority targeted both players and their families with disgusting racist and threatening abuse.
Those responsible are now, quite rightly, facing police action.
In a statement, Arsenal said: “We utterly condemn the vile abuse directed at Nicolas Pepe and Ezgjan Alioski on social media following our match against Leeds United. This is completely unacceptable and we will be working with the police and authorities to do everything we can to trace and prosecute the culprits.”
Leeds added: “The vile abuse directed at Ezgjan Alioski and Nicolas Pepe on social media after yesterday’s Premier League game with Arsenal will not be tolerated by Leeds United.
“We will work closely with the police and the footballing authorities to ensure those responsible are identified and punished.”
It is frustrating but it is also just a game.
Couldn’t agree more ,always find this crazy.
I personally think we need to ignore the voices on social media. This is what happens when you allow 12 year olds to be anonymous and say what they like.
We take it so seriously and make generalisations about society as a result but it’s always just silly kids behaving like dicks.
I haven’t been on Twitter, insta or Facebook for over a year now and I can not recommend it enough. Social media is like drinking sulphuric acid six times a day and still coming back for more.
Yeah it really is. Seeing people slagging off Arteta under Videos of the Womens team was like:wtf are you doing here? Just using every opportunity to send a pile of sh*t into this world. I now really understand why people dislike Arsenal as a whole what the toxicity is really like. This is unaccaptable. Wenger always talking about the class and values of the club and we are kicking it with our feet. There is nothing special about this family now. Makes me even questioning about criticising players yesterday. The Internet is a weird place, let’s not make it even… Read more »
This behaviour is completely unacceptable but in no way is it unique to Arsenal. Arsenal supporters are hated by rival fans because over the years! media outlets have portrayed us soft elitist crybabies who pay the most money to watch an easily bullied and mentally weak team that refuse to play football the “English” way. When a West Ham fan was stabbed outside WHL, was that due to Arsenal fans being toxic? When Ed Woodward had projectiles and flares thrown into his home, was that due to Arsenal fans being toxic? When the bus windows of the Man City bus… Read more »
But it is no excuse to go down the same road, just because others did it as well. I mean we flew planes over Stadiums and what not. That isn’t as dramatic as smashing homes and stabbing people (I must say I did not know about most of the things). But how quickly it turned from yeah, back the manager, trust the process to me, having the constant feeling like it’s massive doom and gloom all over again, after having the same time last year. Those things are hardly comparable. But I feel like everyone is waiting for something bad… Read more »
Viv I agree with your underlying point. As supporters, we don’t need to descend into deviant behaviour for the sake of fanaticism. I am just saying that given the nonsense that sometimes elsewhere in football, we shouldn’t be saying the neighbour’s grass is greener
You will be surprised at how many aren’t 12 year olds !
Yeah, that is were it is getting really scary.
Maybe. I just think we are at a stage now where no one can honestly put forward a positive effect that SM has on our lives past an arbitrary sense of connection that we ironically use to hate each other.
I just think it’s a doomed project which has caused nothing but misery and should be treated as such. It’s up to us as it’s “customers” to log off and stop poking the hornets nest.
If they aren’t 12 year olds they’re idiots and should be ignored anyway. Social media isn’t a reflection of anything other than social media.
You have a 74-year-old and most powerful man on the planet doing it outside football.
And causing far more harm than the worst football supporter.
There’s a lot of “african football experts” as well.
I beg of you, please stop trying to sidestep the issue of racism with this silliness about extremely online 12 yr olds.
The other day you were cracking wise on here about “the Guardian thinks even a flower pot is racist haha”.
It’s all very, very funny, until it isn’t. According to Kick it Out incidents of reported racist abuse across professional football increased 53% in 2019/2020.
This is a serious problem that’s only gonna get worse if we keep making excuses for it.
Well sorry for pointing out that certain publications rely heavily on inflammatory headlines to sell their papers. The party line is now that we are all inherently and unavoidably racist due to the original sin of being born a certain way so don’t be surprised when the same people who tell you that state that abuse is on the rise. When “miss gendering” or “dead naming” people is now considered a hate crime, it comes as almost no surprise that statistics will say we are becoming less and less tolerant. If you make the goalposts absolutely massive, a lot of… Read more »
Absolutely mate.
Once we’ve addressed your particular personal grievances we can start addressing the racist attitudes that are spoiling society and bleeding into football.
All we can do is account for ourselves. We won’t change racists minds. They will always be cunts.
I spend my days being kind and courteous to everyone and guess what, they are kind and courteous in return.
If we all did that instead of making assumptions about our fellow man, the world would get immediately better. The world does not get any better if we fill its inhabitants with the notion that we live in a nasty, wicked world.
Not all racists are c*nts. They are regular people just like anyone else – some of them are Gooners even – and their views can change with better education and awareness.
If I was a racist adult who had abused Pepe or Alioski I’d be pssing myself laughing if people assumed I was just some 12 yr old.
Filing racists away as c*nts to be ignored is cowardly and achieves nothing. It only emboldens their racism because they know they’ll always get away with it.
We can only hope that after all the brain reprogramming we all think just like you Kaius.
All I’m saying is some racists, not all, but some can have their minds changed.
Sorry if you took that personally.
The norms around mis-gendering are still developing, but you’re using that as a strawman to avoid any regulation of speech whatsoever.
There are areas where the norms have been much clearer for a long time, it’s just that social media companies have lobbied to carve themselves out exceptions.
If the right can whip up xenophobic attitudes to win votes then it would be naive to assume the left would not do the opposite.
One of my revelations post 2020 USA election is that both sides are inherently dishonest and spread lies to win votes. I always believed that left were the good guys and the right the bad. But I’ve changed my opinion.
We need to find our own narratives which are kind and considerate to our fellow man but don’t allow ourselves to rip society apart through division and distrust.
Do you live in the United States?
I don’t but I also see the massive effect America and it’s politics has on the world. After all, our players are still taking the knee for something that happened in USA six months ago. I cannot ignore the coincidence that this all began bubbling up after an election campaign in 2016 where Clinton basically played identity politics with an entire nation. You either voted for her or, if you were a racist, you voted for Trump. I just worry that in order to win votes, the democrats have opened Pandora’s box and now opened, we will struggle to close… Read more »
Thank you.
So I guess by that logic you have no right to comment on British football.
Ease up. It was an innocuous question asked to get a perspective of your position . Believe me, I was thanking you for the frankness, as I may have responded with my thoughts if this was a different forum.
“If this was a different forum”
Very astute comment.
Kiss, kiss, kiss!
Starting to think the elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top with some of you gents
Oh, sorry mate. It read to me like a passive aggressive way of telling me to shut up!
Apologies.
No worries. Thanks.
Nice save! 👏
Brilliant! 👍🤣
Johnny, if you look up the term “ false equivalency” it may include your statement as the shining example
It probably won’t coz Johnny didn’t compare anything to anything else. Maybe you need to go look it up brother 😉
Ouch. Burn!
Leo, perhaps an English lesson is warranted. He referred to “ both sides “ . For many of us who fluently speak English a Discussion or comment about 2 sides …. a comparison that involves.
Have you a shred of evidence? Stop talking rubbish
I’m often reminded of Nick Griffin when this discussion occurs. Remember that massive cunt? Head of the BNP or something. It was massively criticised when he was allowed on Newsnight but the other guests and the audience made such mincemeat out of him that he was never heard of again. What kind of a martyr would he have become if he had been gagged from making public appearances? These peoples opinions are shit, wrong, pathetic and disgusting. It’s up to us to expose these people and prove just how stupid they truly are. We can only do that by first… Read more »
I think the false equivalency’ comment refers to your equating Clinton’s campaign to Trump’s, and the left’s “lies” to those of the right. That politicians spin’ and distort is surely true. There is an enormous difference between them; look at the past week’s news and compare the lies, especially racist lies, about this election with how Clinton (or, for that matter, aall other recent defeated candidates including Romney, McCain, Kerry, and even Gore (whose victory might actually have been stolen) handled it.
Didn’t the democrats spend four years contesting the Russian interference? Didn’t the democrats refuse to hold rally’s out of respect for COVID and then go dancing in the streets straight after? Didn’t the democrats say believe all women until Biden was accused of harassment? Didn’t the democrats accuse Trump of racism for four years while Biden actually argued for segregation back in the eighties? Didn’t Clinton tell Biden to never concede this election? To me both sides are the same side of the same coin. Power hungry psychopaths who will do anything for power. It’s just a shame clearly quite… Read more »
Democrats never contested Russian interference. They accused, documented and proved it. Every intelligence agency in every free nation in the world reported it and agreed with it. Every intelligence agency in America 10-12 agreed and confirmed it. The GOP led Intelligence Committee votes unanimously….that means every one of them….that those were the facts. Some like Johnny regurgitate lies and falsehoods but that does not make them true even if Putin says so. You can choose to embrace the false equivalency and propaganda so as to repeat it to the point where the uninformed regurgitate it. Some of Us understand that… Read more »
Both the conservative parties in the US and UK were privately happy to accept the benefits of Russian disinformation while publicly pretending to be offended by the insinuation.
And it’s rich to claim Clinton accused an entire nation of racism (what she specifically said was ‘25% of Tr*mp supporters were deplorables’.)
People here generally agreed with the comment about “racists are cunts” who can’t be reached or appealed to, so clearly Clinton was onto something.
Judging by the last four years, she probably undercounted the deplorables.
It’s kinda hard to start to start “working on actual solutions” when you have people who reserve the right to denigrate others by misgendering and dead naming them. There is no original sin of racism and bigotry. People can choose not to be racist and transphobic cunts. If someone’s CHOSEN not to respect these people’s wishes to be referred to by their gender and by their name, they’re not doing it because they were born that way, they’re doing it because they’re a twat. By the way, having the intolerance goalposts moved only affects you if you’re shooting hateful crap.… Read more »
“It’s kinda hard to start to start “working on actual solutions” when you have people who reserve the right to denigrate others by misgendering and dead naming them.” Ask JK Rowling how hard it is to have a conversation without being slandered for attempting to find just a little logic in a frankly baffling movement. Both sides can do better when it comes to discussing this. And it’s a discussion that needs to be had. Unfortunately that discussion will never happen while anyone who maybe believes that a man has a penis is shouted down like they are the scum… Read more »
Yes, it’s incredibly hard for JK Rowling to have a conversation – it’s not like her opinions have been widely published and reported on. It’s mostly that her arguments have been so scattershot and terrible that engaging with them would be a waste of time. I believe her issue was that the term “people who menstruate” isn’t used interchangeably with “women” – even though there are a lot of people who menstruate who aren’t women – being girls – and a lot of women who don’t menstruate – being past menopause. A little logic? Too little logic for me. What… Read more »
I don’t want to deny anyone’s right to pursue their life as they wish. But unfortunately the ramifications for the trans movement are big. They effect sports, prisons, changing rooms, feminism, not to mention biology that we have all been in agreement with since the dawn of man. It’s not just another gay rights issue. This would alter the entire fabric of science and culture and, as a result, there needs to be a discussion on how to move forward. That doesn’t mean we don’t move forward and I’m sure attitudes will. But just hold your judgement while people get… Read more »
What I’m asking of society? Easy, treat the incredibly small minority of trans people as they wish to be treated. I’m not sure how that would “alter the entire fabric of science”. Nobody claims trans people are biologically the gender they are. They just demand that they be socially considered to be the gender they are. Sports and prisons will adapt. The changing rooms/bathrooms argument is utterly silly. As for feminism, it doesn’t really have any issues with the trans movement – which can’t be said for a couple of aging feminists who haven’t moved with the times. I know… Read more »
kaius, in society, and we all live in society, rules, norms and indecent behavior are both identified and called out. Just like an adult or parent defines these for youth and children society defines and calls it out for all of us. Thanks for being one of the civil, thoughtful adults in the room.
Kiss, kiss, kiss!!
Thanks WhatthehellMikel.
Much appreciated, especially as certain fans on here are trying to turn this place into the Daily mail comments section
Aw. They kissed! 🥰
Ahhh the Arsenal fanbase is so inclusive we’re accepting incels now. Welcome friend!
Maybe just don’t lose ya shit the minute ya hear of some dude in Australia using the N word in a bus. It sucks but its life. Bed of roses, except for the pricks!!
Australia huh? The same country where some of you like to get drunk and have fist fights with kangaroos?
Some dude using the N word on a bus there is not surprising at all
No wonder cases are up. You lose your job for saying coloured instead of person of colour. That ain’t racism. That’s a daft slip of the tongue. Coloured was fine anyway a few years back.
Burning witches at the stake was was fine too once.
Greg Clarke probably deserved to lose his job, for bungling the Mark Sampson affair, and for almost going along with the doomed ‘Project Big Picture’, and for his weird opinions about women’s football but yeah I guess it suits the reactionary right-wing narrative to blame it on the coloured comment and the coloured comment alone.
It’s definitely not just 12 year olds. I saw that Twitter thread where Luigi Gaspar, the teenage son of Edu was getting abused by so called Arsenal fans earlier this year.
Not one of their display pictures looked like a 12 year old unless we’re now saying bearded men are preteens. I don’t like Edu’s management but I’d never abuse him or his family over it.
There has always been a toxic side to football fan behaviour, that toxic element simply use social media as another means of carrying out their abuse.
It’s not just 12 year olds. The fact that we don’t apply the same basic sense restrictions on social media as we do on traditional media – especially the prohibition against publishing hate speech or libel – is unraveling society. Ignoring it is not the solution any longer.
We don’t need to prosecute each of the millions of instances of such speech published regularly. Prosecute a few, make the law clear and the penalties sky-high, and the rest will be forced to keep their trash in their own heads.
So how do you feel about this? Genuinely interested. You seem like a smart person who knows their (not making gender presumptions!) stuff.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/humberside-police-twitter-transgender-limerick-2468385.amp
I think if he wasn’t a former policeman he should be fired. Offensive idiots who claim “you can’t say anything these days” are just old bigoted dinosaurs.
“If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise, we do not believe in it at all”
Noam Chomsky.
It’s a shit limerick tbh, barely rhymes!
Seriously though, freedom of speech is obviously essential in a liberal democracy but so too is the mutual respect we have for each others cultures and beliefs. Those beliefs of course should be open to criticism, but that criticism shouldn’t be needlessly provocative or intolerant.
Saying that, I don’t think this was worthy of police action. Can we go back to talking about football now?
But if we keep talking about other problems, we don’t have to address the fact we just got run off the park by relegation fodder.
Again.
How well did that relegation fodder perform against Liverpool? Remember Liverpool… that amazing team who play that incredible football that every fan loves to watch and the football world hopes their team will mirror?
I bet you’re fun at dinner parties…
🤣👍
On the whole, an officer calling and explaining why some views are not respectful to others is a much, much better experience than a lot of people have with the police. If you’re saying that for mis-gendering, this kind of thing is better done through means other than the police, I’m in full agreement. A public awareness programme could help at this stage. But that requires presuming some minimal amount of open-mindedness. Beyond the evolving awareness of gender, how far are we willing to extend this approach? The idea that speech is an antidote to speech is very simplistic –… Read more »
I would respectfully argue that we are far closer to the atrocities caused by the 1917 October revolution if police are ringing up citizens to question them over why they liked a tweet.
The left seem to want the government to control our lives in every aspect, right down to who we have our Christmas lunch with.
This is not enlightenment thinking. This is Stalin.
Agree. Considering the job, responsibility and salaries that the players have got at their hands, staying away from social media is not a big sacrifice to make and also in the best interests of everyone involved.
There are always going to frustrated retarded people in this world who you cannot get rid of. Online abusing is a very convenient way to vent out for such people.
Only if people with certain jobs, responsibilities and incomes would stay off the internet so the rest of us can act like psychotic tools (I should know).
As the spokesperson for all frustrated retarded people in this world, I would like you all to log off immediately.
That’s a tough one because asking players to stay away from social media is almost like silencing them.
Like the abusers, the players also have a right to free expression.
Yes, we should but unfortunately so many people view/use social media nowadays and some (an increasing number) believe what they read on it or allow themselves to be influenced by it.
I think it represents a potentially serious, and growing, problem which shouldn’t be ignored – and, increasingly albeit belatedly, it isn’t (as in this case). I wish it was “just silly kids” – although that would be bad enough as they will probably grow into something rather more worrying than “just silly adults” – but it isn’t.
The last paragraph is classic. Hahahaha
Well said.
Sorry, you aren’t allowed to be positive towards a comment that has been upvoted by everyone…
It would seem so…!! What you’ll find mate is that no matter what I post, there’ll always be one or two who’ll thumb it down, regardless of what I may have posted.
Aaah, my little group of Ozil Haters. Where would I be without their faithful downvotes? 🤣
I wouldn’t mention him for a while, you’d be surprised how quickly people forget.
Idiots!!!!
I am so glad that I am not connected to any of these idiots on social media. Because I didn’t see any abuse on my timelines.
No need.
The levels of overreaction to football on social media is getting too much. Looking from the outside in, it must look like cannibalism. How people are beating the crap out of each other after every game. It is something we can hardly influence as fans, even less at the moment. I don’t want to say: do not care about The Arsenal. I want them, to not go out of every game and be just plain stupid. And I think that would ease the whole place down. Don’t you think that staff and players don’t get it, when they get bombarded… Read more »
Get them and punish them hard.. Those fools need to realize that you’re not able to say anything you want on the internet. So far they don’t act properly against online abuse etc. This is way more unacceptable then Pepe’s ‘headbutt’, so I guess according to those abusers we’re now allowed to abuse them?
The old if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound should be applied here. Anyone who see’s these racist tweets is by following that person or anyone who shares it, happy to see the racists tweets. If they block them and move on, then they’ll never see them again. When that person has nobody following their tweets anymore, maybe they’ll think twice. We can’t spend time and effort policing kids and morons on social media when 90% of the investigations will come to nothing and there are countless ways to do the same anonymously anyway. There… Read more »
I’m not saying they should get any public attention, but they should be punished. There are countless ways the police can use to get most of those abusers who aren’t as private as they think they are. And you miss the point by saying there are far worse things going on in the world. We’re dealing with uneducated arseholes in the whole world, that doesn’t mean they should be allowed to act like an uneducated arsehole like this or in any other way that harms other people.
It’s crazy to me that countries in the west don’t have freedom of speech. But if you are going to create these laws fines or jail time for some working class stiff or child won’t stop anything. Go after twitter and Facebook and fine them 5-10k every time they publish something violating your laws. Have some balls for Christ’s sake.
Apart from this incident, Leeds played really well, I wanted Marcelo to replace Emery, but Arteta has proved his worth. Worried about the form in the premier league. This is going to be a testing season. Two new number 10s are needed and must be a priority, no movement from defense to strikers. Defense is in good shape, really missing Partey in yesterday’s game. Joe Willock is not ready. A new No. 9, cant be dependent Auba.
I think in the initial 30 mins of the game I saw a lot of signs that encouraged me. There was a different dynamic about the way Arsenal played through the central areas. The ball would be played into one of either Willian, Willock, or Pepe who then played with one of two options, advance themselves or find the next man. Willian initially did this quite well, a quick turn of pace or shimmy to make space and then play the ball usually into Willock. Willock would often get the ball in a central space and run into a channel.… Read more »
Getting police involved for post match internet abuse seems a bit far and pointless. Since abuse is international, and British laws are not. Being on the receiving end of it, fairplay to them to pushback.
Agree.. for all you know these abusers can be chinese bots
Might be the reason why it’s a good idea to investigate. If people knew I was a chinese bot, they would be less upset at my internet drivel.
The down votes on this comment show the naivety of the online landscape. They seem to think it’s easy to police and that censoring people will have an effect even if it was possible… Save your time an money and spend it on education instead.
Yeah, we all know when you educate people they follow the rules/laws laid down in a society. We should all educate each other and sing kumbaya while we’re at it….and face zero consequences when we fail to learn.
Your coach should be first one to be held accountable for this with what he said. Is over for Arteta. Arsenal is pile of toxic waste playing one of the worst footballs of any team in the league. Every player that has left is beaming with hapiness and cant stop talking about having fun again… Arteta fanclub is about to close down soon.
It’d be nice if Arsenal could publish the same when Özil is the target of vile abuse about his contract or the pay cut (that he didn’t refuse) or other confidential information the club itself leaks to the media to turn the fanbase against him and to justify a stupid decision.
Sad the number of trolls that there are out there. I don’t care too much about the Premier League now. We’re nowhere near good enough to finish top four, and far too good to go down. I can see us ending up between about sixth and tenth. Our best bet for CL football is by winning the EL. There’s a nightmare scenario coming up where we get our arses caned by Spuds in a couple of weeks time. At the moment we’re awful. At least they won’t win the league: that will be Liverpool. The club is a shambles right… Read more »
If you really want to pile on the agony, watch some of the 1998-2004 clips on YouTube. Watch Pires effortlessly find the space, Bergkamp the pass, Henry the goal, and wonder if they are even playing the same game as Xhaka, Lacazette and Pepe.
The drop off in quality has slow and gradual but is now massive when you see it.
I know. Most of this current squad wouldn’t make it anywhere the invincibles. We’ve gone from a club of the highest excellence 20 years ago to this mediocrity and blandness.
But this decline began a decade ago. The loss of the old board, including Daivid Dein, and the takeover off Stan has taken us to the middle of nowhere.
https://ne-np.facebook.com/arsenalVHD/videos/has-mesut-%C3%B6zil-even-been-that-bad-in-2020/1162795447409924/
You don’t have to back to the days of Pires and Bergkamp.
You don’t even have to go back to 2018.
Much more of the shit sandwich we had against Leeds and I will admit to be wrong about Ozil.
I don’t know why anyone in this day and age is even on social media , especially people in the public eye. its not good for your mental health to see slews of abuse about you or your family from anonymous cowards. its a shame that things have come to this , as social media is a good idea in theory , but to quote the classic meme : “this is why we can’t have nice things!”
For players, and all celebrities, it’s all about building their personal brand and money. They’re all feeding into the same cesspit for personal enrichment. The current orthodoxy is that this is the future, and i guess it is until someone comes up with an alternative. How likely that is given the finances that would be required and the big tech monopolies is anyones guess but this is the world as it is today. Why don’t they switch off the comments section i hear you ask? That’s because it’s all about “interactions”, the more your follower’s interact with your profile the… Read more »
Fucking disgusting that some of it was from our own fans. Disgraceful. The racism was beyond the pale
This is why I don’t have any social media accounts
Does anyone else thinks that Premier League has become boring over the last 3-4 years? Too competitive too machine-like?
too competitive seems like a strange criticism to make. But I do agree that function over attractiveness is becoming more common. Given the money in the game , I guess that is to be expected.
Makes one wonder if the fans of certain teams felt entitled to win and now that the money has provided more competition that entitlement has turned then into whining sore losers. Watch Everton, a world class manager, great team players and spirit and likely Much more happy fans. Competition and competitive games is for those who appreciate highly competitive and well played and executed game plans.
Obviously unacceptable. Views like these are usually bubbling under the surface and social media provides, unfortunately, a platform for them to come through to a wider public.
I think you simply just start removing the ability to post comments on websites, and remove those chat boxes from streaming sites. Utterly vulgar the way most people treat each other these days on all levels.
It is great to blow off steam in comments, but not with abuse or threats.
I do feel that just from a rules point of view, Alioski should have got a yellow for simulation though.
OTOH lets remember also that on the other side of the coin, people were quick to jump on Xhaka when he has only had 2 red cards in his entire Arsenal Career. As mentioned Pepe was I felt decent first half before h lost the plot (for whatever reason) The 3 game absence will have to be filled by a natural right sided player which means either Willian or a good opportunity for Nelson who looked hungry and purposeful when he came on (If at that, he will need further practise delivering on set pieces) – Personally I could not… Read more »
Retards will be retards
Well it warms my heart to read the statement from Pepe tonight. Those are the actions of a man with backbone.
It’s horrible letting our emotions get the best of us. It’s just a game after all is said.
I wonder how many of these trolls sending Pepe abuse, also comment on this blog. I see a lot of nasty stuff written here about Mustafi, Xhaka, and most of all, Ozil.