A day after the 2023 AFCON final, Nigeria international Alexander Iwobi had to delete his social media account after Super eagles’ fans started hurling unpleasant comments to him faulting him for his performance during their loss in the finals.
This is something that has been going on for quite a long time with fans always looking for a scape goat to put their frustrations on whenever their team doesn’t perform well on the pitch. Most of the time, its always the least favorite players to the fans at the moment who always end up receiving the heat and they end up being trolled and used as memes. We have seen it happen before to Karim Benzema at Real Madrid, Granit Xhaka at Arsenal and Andre Onana at Manchester united.
These players are also human and it is said ‘man is to error’. They also have families at home just like us who wouldn’t love to see their loved one being cyber bullied. They have feelings like any human being and most of the time, these scenarios tend to affect them from mentally to also their day-to-day activities.
Football is a sport that brings people from different origins and cultures just to enjoy a lifetime moment. We should not turn against the few selected to represent our countries or favorite team just because we lost or he or she had a bad game, we should all rally behind our players and give them all the support needed during their difficult times.
Most of the time, non-footballing issues are the reasons players don’t perform well on the pitch, instead of raising fingers and abusing them we should stand firm and assure them of our support in good and bad moments. We talk of mental health issues all the times but are the first to start cyber bulling campaigns against others.
Every player who puts on a jersey to represent a nation or team on the pitch is a warrior that deserves to be respected. We win and lose together.
