Crystal Palace manager, Roy Hodgson has come out to say that racism will not affect Zaha’s form. He recently revealed that the Ivorian is too strong and resilient to let that happen.
According to him, Zaha has never indicated to him that racism is hurting him in any way, mentally or physically, so he trusts him to keep focusing on matters on the pitch.
Hodgson added that he hopes the current social media boycotting will have a positive impact on racism online and offline.
His words, “He’s a strong character, a resilient character. He’s never even indicated to me that it’s this has hurt me so much mentally that I can’t train or play football.”
“But there’s no doubt that all the things that have gone on have had a serious effect on him. I find it very difficult myself to appreciate how much these players are able to take really, and how strong they can be in the face of such vile abuse from anonymous people. It’s tough enough if you’re confronted by someone who abuses you.”
“At least then you’ve got the person in front of you, and you can argue your case or at least get a better feeling of why am I deserving this abuse. But all these anonymous people – we don’t even know who they are.”
“The worst thing that’s happened in relation to social media for me was before a very important game at the end of last season, an important game for Aston Villa more so than us.”
“We weren’t fighting relegation, they were. But the morning of that game Wilf woke up to some of the vilest abuse possible, and that certainly did affect him. He was mentally challenged by that level of abuse.”
“But what really affected me was when they tracked down the person and they did track them down, it was an 11 or 12-year-old boy.”
“It makes you wonder where society’s going. But what sort of platforms are these social media platforms that allow a 12-year-old boy who maybe doesn’t even know better, maybe he’s just aping older people around him – what sort of platform is that that you can get on and do these things? It’s frightening, really.”
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