A fan of British football club Tottenham Hotspur has been arrested after throwing a banana skin at Gabon international Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who plays for rival team Arsenal.
An eye witness while sharing the incident on his twitter handle said: “And he threw it right as Aubameyang was celebrating his goal too. The look on Auba’s face is (was) devastating. Racism is alive and well in football, unfortunately.
The incident happened when Aubameyang scored the first goal of Sunday’s fiercely fought match between the two north London sides, which Arsenal went on to win 4-2. CCTV was used to identify and catch the culprit, who has now also been banned from future matches.
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Black players in British football have long faced racist abuse from fans, which in the past often involved bananas being thrown at them or monkey noises being chanted at them on the pitch.
The Football Association says they will investigate Sunday’s events. A total of seven arrests were made – two of those arrested were Arsenal fans who lit smoke canisters during the match.
Tottenham Hotspur addressed the racist abuse with this statement:
“Behaviour such as this is completely unacceptable and the supporter in question will be issued with a ban.”