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Hudson-Odoi slams social media companies after monkey emoji not deemed racist

  /  autty

Callum Hudson-Odoi vented his anger at social media companies after it was revealed they do not believe the monkey emoji has racist connotations.

Sportsmail revealed on Thursday that Premier League clubs flagged several tweets to top-flight players with monkey emojis in them to Twitter last week but were stunned when the social media giants responded by saying they did not violate any rules.

Several Premier League players, including Marcus Rashford, Romaine Sawyers, Anthony Martial and Southampton's Alexandre Jankewitz reported racial abuse last week and Chelsea winger Hudson-Odoi is stunned by Twitter's stance on the matter.

He told beIN Sports: 'How can that make sense? If somebody puts for example, a monkey emoji towards a player - why is that? How is a player a monkey? What does that mean to a player?

'So for us seeing stuff like that it always makes us angry. Are you saying that because of our skin colour? Because of the colour that we are?

'Or are you just saying that because you just want to be, you think that you're funny or you want to get a laugh out of people?

'No one laughs at that sort of situation. All of us take that personally as a team and as players. We have to do something about it. Because obviously, as I said, racism won't stop.'

Southampton teenager Jankewitz, 19, received torrent abuse online after being sent off on his Premier League debut - a 9-0 defeat to Manchester United.

Hampshire Police launched an investigation earlier this week into the abuse and they are not the only police force to speak out on reported incidents this week.

Greater Manchester Police also revealed they will be looking into tweets sent to Manchester United trio Rashford, Martial and  Axel Tuanzebe  following their club's 2-1 loss to Sheffield United recently. United have also offered support to the players.

Furthermore, one man was arrested last week for the racial abuse of West Bromwich Albion midfielder Sawyers after his side's 5-0 loss to Manchester City.

Hudson-Odoi described those responsible for the abuse as 'stupid and 'idiotic' and called for more people within the football industry to speak out on the issue.

The Chelsea star added: 'When you talk about it people start to realise that it's not right at the same time, but there are times where people feel like it's an advantage for them to carry on trying to make you feel more down about yourself, or make you feel a type of way about your skin colour or something like that.

'It's totally unacceptable and totally - don't like to use the word - but 'stupid' from their side, and idiotic; because I'm like - "Why would you want to do that to a player of the team that you support?" Especially when you want them to do well for your team as well?

'It's embarrassing to us that we're playing our hearts out and trying to play the game as much as possible to try and win games. And if we don't win or do something wrong, we're receiving bad things from other people.

'We are trying our best in every game that we play in and our daily lives to talk about it because it's just the thing where it gets me angry to hear stuff like that. As I said, it's unacceptable and hopefully things get resolved soon.'

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich wrote to each player last week, expressing his dismay at the racism defender Reece James and others had suffered and promising to invest funds to address the issue.

Fellow Chelsea player Antonio Rudiger is the latest player to report racial abuse directed at him and claimed that social media companies are profiting from online racism.

Hudson-Odoi claimed that Abramovich's letter had been well received by players.

He added: 'It is good to see that the owner is trying to sort something out as soon as possible but certainly social media needs to step up and do something about it, because it's very easy to go on social media and write something hateful to somebody without anything being done about it.'