Everton’s Abdoulaye Doucoure was on the receiving end of “some of the worst outpourings of abuse” ever witnessed in the Premier League, according to the league’s director of content protection, Tim Cooper. The abhorrent online messages were directed at the Blues midfielder following his celebration of James Tarkowski’s last-minute equalizer in front of Liverpool fans during the final Merseyside Derby at Goodison Park.
The 2-2 draw ensured that the hosts did not end with a losing record at their home ground in this fixture after over 130 years of rivalry.
Doucoure received a second yellow card post-match for the incident, resulting in a one-match suspension. Reds midfielder Curtis Jones, who confronted Doucoure, also saw red, as did Liverpool head coach Arne Slot and Sipke Hulshoff in separate incidents.
An article in the i paper reveals: “When Doucoure went back to the dressing room, he noticed his Instagram account had ‘lit up.’ There were, by his estimate, ‘thousands’ of direct messages spewing the worst, most vile sort of racism. And they just kept coming for days.
“There was crude text abuse but also a string of gifs and emojis of monkeys and bananas. Even worse, there were death threats to him and his young family. Doucoure decided that he had to take a stand.”
Doucoure took the time to share his experiences with around 100 schoolchildren at Goodison Park, during a Show Racism The Red Card event that he insisted on attending. Speaking of his past approach to racism, he remarked: “I never used to speak on racism. I just tried to cope and ignore it but sometimes you need to speak on these topics and spread the message.
“I understand the frustration about the celebration I had in front of the Liverpool fans, and I accept that they can criticise and say that wasn’t appropriate, but I’m surprised people use discrimination to hurt you. I received death threats, as well as my family, which is going too far.
(Image: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
“We know this happens every weekend for a lot of players and [now] I want to be an example on how to stand against this and send a strong message to people.”
The report detailed the dismay caused when both Everton and Liverpool released a joint statement condemning the abuse the following day, only to see the situation reignite. Cooper noted that for the league’s online abuse team—comprised of ten individuals, including lawyers and experienced investigators—a moment such as Doucoure’s incident became a priority.
They are tasked with scanning every top-flight match for “triggering incidents” like contentious goals, VAR decisions, or even celebrations, and Cooper said: “I think that just shows the mentality of the sort of people we’re dealing with.
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“It was horrendous in Abdoulaye’s case. The volume of messages was extraordinary. They were all open messages, so he will have just seen his account ‘light up’, and the abuse was really different this time.
“It used to be text-based, but Instagram is very emoji-based. It was awash with monkey and gorilla gifs and it’s the first time we’ve really seen that, and it’s really difficult to filter that out. We can look for text or emojis but it’s much more difficult with video.
“It was spiteful and obvious what was going on, so we were already working to remove posts straight away after it happened, and then we were straight into the player to offer support.”
