Odsonne Edouard has shown his support for Moussa Marega on an Instagram post.
Last night social media quickly shared the racist abuse that the Porto striker suffered during a 2-1 win over Vitoria Guimares.
The Guardian reports:
Marega scored what turned out to be the winner on the hour mark but felt unable to continue, his final act was to raise his two middle fingers to the home supporters.
After scoring Porto’s second, Marega celebrated his goal by pointing to his skin. In response Vitoria fans aimed abuse and threw seats from the stand at Mali international. Marega even celebrated with one of the discarded plastic seats but then made his way to the side of the pitch, with his thumbs down and seemingly booing the home supporters.
As Marega walked to the touchline, players from both teams attempted to calm down the striker and convince him to stay on the pitch but were unsuccessful. Porto head coach Sérgio Conceição also spoke to Marega but ultimately decided to grant him his wish of leaving the pitch and brought on Wilson Manafá to replace the goalscorer.
Last week when he picked up the January Player of the Month award Edouard said that he hadn’t experienced racism in Scotland but there is little doubt that it is a growing problem for society and football.
There has been a number of racist incidents reported in Italy this season but the problem seems to be spreading forcing the football authorities to tackle incidents.
UEFA make an issue of racism before matches by supporting various campaigns but have been slow to take decisive action, preferring a sliding scale of punishments.
In November Lazio had a section of the Stadio Olympico closed for the visit of Celtic following incidents in the Europa League tie at home to Rennes.