Bayern Munich have offered their support to Kingsley Coman after was subject to racist abuse in the aftermath of the World Cup final.
Coman’s France so nearly won a second World Cup in a row after fighting back from 2-0 and 3-2 down against Argentina but ultimately lost on penalties.
The winger was one of two players to miss a penalty, with Emiliano Martinez saving, and had a number of racist comments directed to him on social media shortly after, as did teammates Aurelien Tchouameni and Randal Kolo Muani.
Bayern Munich have now condemned such behaviour and declared their support for their player.
“FC Bayern strongly condemn the racist comments made towards Kingsley Coman,” the German club tweeted. “The FC Bayern family is behind you, King. Racism has no place in sport or our society.”
Many of the abusive posts were made on Facebook and Instagram, two social media platforms owned by Meta.
Discussing the matter with The Athletic, a spokeperson for the company said: “We don’t want racist abuse on Instagram, and we’ve removed the disgusting comments for breaking our rules.
“We also want to help protect people from having to see this abuse in the first place, which is why we’ve developed Hidden Words, a feature that filters offensive comments and DMs, and Limits, which hides comments and DMs from people who don’t follow you, or only followed you recently.
“We’re in touch with players and their teams directly, including since yesterday’s final, to offer them support and help them turn on these tools.”