Manchester City and England forward Raheem Sterling has hit out at newspapers for “fuelling racism” based on how they portray young black footballers.
This was said after Manchester City was defeated 2-0 by Chelsea in yesterdays premier league match at Stamford Bridge, the game however was marred by an incident which saw the 24-year-old forward being subjected to racial abuse from the stands.
The incident is currently being investigated by Chelsea Football Club and the Metropolitan Police; however, this is the second racial incident that has taken place in Premier League football within the last week. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was subjected to similar abuse when the Arsenal forward had a banana skin thrown at him.
Raheem Sterling has consistently had bad press from certain parts of the media. Being one of the first times that the young England international has spoken on the issue online, he pin-pointed the differences between how two young Manchester City team-mates were portrayed by newspapers for carrying out the same action.
Racism in football has been the topic of highlight across the last couple of weeks with Ian Wright presenting a documentary Out of their Skin, which highlighted the struggle black football players have had to endure with racism in the sport since the 1970s all the way up till current time.
The full statement from Raheem Sterling is below and was uploaded to his personal Instagram account this morning.