KNVB condemns racist abuse of Dutch players who missed penalties

Three members of the Dutch national football team have received racist abuse online after they missed penalties in the World Cup defeat to Morocco.

The football association KNVB condemned the messages that were sent to Justin Kluivert, Cyrsencio Summerville and Quinten Timber following the shoot-out defeat on Tuesday,

Kluivert and Summerville disabled replies to their posts, making the messages invisible, but Timber’s account showed dozens of racist comments and images.

A spokesman for the football association said the reactions were “terrible”, adding: “We are seeing online replies in which players are being racially abused and discriminated against after being knocked out.

“This clearly crosses a line for us. Racism and discrimination do not belong in football, online or anywhere else in our society.”

The KNVB said it would report the offending messages to anti-discrimination hotline Meld.Discriminatie Online. The watchdog said on Wednesday it had not yet heard from the governing body.

A spokesman said it had received several reports of racist messages directed at players during the game, including “things that were against the law.”

England players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka received similar abuse after missing penalties in the final of Euro 2020 against Italy. Police arrested 11 people and one man was jailed for 10 weeks after he posted a video of himself shouting a racist tirade on Facebook.