Your support helps us to tell the story
As your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.
Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn't have the resources to challenge those in power.
Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November election
Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
The Football Association (FA) will provide funding to the police to aid in the prosecution of individuals who abuse England’s players on social media, the governing body’s CEO Mark Bullingham said ahead of Euro 2024.
Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho were targets of racist online abuse after they missed spot-kicks in a 3-2 shootout loss to Italy in the final of the previous edition of the tournament.
In 2022, a British teenager was sentenced to six weeks in prison for racially abusing Rashford after the final, while a man who live-streamed himself racially abusing the trio on Facebook was jailed for 10 weeks.
“Now we are doing things differently,” Bullingham told the media. “In the past what we did was put together all the data, effectively an evidence pack, to give to the police to prosecute. But this time we have gone a stage further where we are actually funding a unit within the British police that will then prosecute.
“What we don’t want to do is create a pack that we then give to the police for them to prosecute but they don’t have the resource to actually take that forward. So we are actually paying for the prosecution to then happen and funding the police to make sure if there are instances of some examples we have seen before, that they get prosecuted.”
Bullingham said the funding would cost the FA around £25,000 but added that the figure could change depending on the number of prosecutions.
England kick off their Group C campaign against Serbia on Sunday, followed by matches against Denmark on June 20 and Slovenia on June 25.
Reuters
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments