‘I Was Racially Abused In Arsenal vs Norwich Match’- Boxer Anthony Ogogo

Boxer Anthony Ogogo says he was racially abused by a fan after watching Norwich City in their Carabao Cup tie against Arsenal at Emirates Stadium.

The Canaries supporter, 28, believes he was targeted by a fellow Norwich fan who thought he was backing Arsenal in their 2-1 win on Tuesday.

Ogogo, from Lowestoft, said: “I was shocked. There’s no place for that in football or anywhere for that matter.

“In this day and age it’s disgusting. He said ‘Go back to your own country’.”

Middleweight Ogogo, who won bronze as an amateur at the 2012 London Olympics, played for Norwich City’s youth team as a schoolboy before switching to boxing.

The London-based boxer watched Tuesday’s game among home fans after his Arsenal-supporting friend let him use his ticket for the Carabao Cup fourth-round match.

“After the final whistle most of the Arsenal fans around me emptied out but I wanted to clap off the Norwich players because they’d given everything,” he said.

“I went to the front of the stand and was clapping and singing in time with the Norwich fans below me. Then my friend said it looked as if an older guy with the Norwich supporters was trying to get my attention as if he knew me.

“I bent down to listen and quickly realised he didn’t know me. He probably thought I was an Arsenal fan and he was shouting and swearing at me, saying pretty nasty stuff. I was flabbergasted.

“The player who scored our goal Josh Murphy is mixed-race and some of our great players have been black. This man must have cheered them on in his time.

“He was maybe in his seventies. I’m pretty thick-skinned as a professional athlete but it was really disappointing and a shame that it tarnished what should have been a nice memory for me because we played well even ‘though we lost.”

Comments

comments