Online harassment: footballers say stop to hate messages

They are tired of receiving hateful, racist or insulting messages on social media and they let it know through the same channel.

As part of a campaign against cyberbullying, dozens of Bundesliga footballers, German and foreign, are expressing their fed up with hate messages of all kinds.

In a video produced by Sport 360, a football agency, widely relayed on Twitter under the hashtag #UniteAgainstHate, the footballers, facing the camera, each read in their language and in the most neutral way the message (s) in which they have been the target.

Hate isn't an opinion.

Behind every screen is a human.

#UniteAgainstHate # S04 pic.twitter.com/UdFfZaXj9n

- FC Schalke 04 (@ s04_en) February 25, 2021

Dayot Upamecano, the French international defender from Leipzig, then Toni Kroos, the Real Madrid player, appear among the first, followed by Niklas Süle (Bayern Munich) and many of their colleagues, gathered by the dozen in the mosaic at the end of the video .

"I hope you're going to die, you fucking African, fucking bastard", thus declaims Upamecano, written message in support, as proof.

"I wish you would die in hell," Kroos declaims, for his part.

"I hope you read this and injure yourself so badly that you will never be able to play soccer again ..." another message said ...

"Hate speech is not an opinion"

Footballers invite awareness, by various injunctions: "Cyberbullying is not an insignificant offense" or "Stirring up hatred on the Internet is not a stupid boy's joke".

On the final black screen, the following words are solemnly inscribed in white on a black background: “We appreciate your opinion, but hate speech is not opinion.

There is a human behind every screen.

Let's be #UniteAgainstHate (united against hate).

"

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This campaign against online harassment is currently being broadcast in Germany, picked up by the media and by several Bundesliga clubs, such as FC Cologne or Schalke 04.