Reggae Boy Michail Antonio slams inequity in football

Reggae Boy Michail Antonio has made a very powerful statement about racism in football on the back of the fallout from West Ham teammate’s Kurt Zouma’s actions.

Zouma was made to pay US$250,000 to West Ham and lost a contract with Adidas for a video that showed him kicking and slapping his cat.

To boot, Vitality, a sponsor of West Ham United, have also pulled their sponsorship after the club started Zouma in a match, hours after the revelations.

Antonio was asked by the media if there needed to be further sanctions against Zouma and whether or not he should be sacked from West Ham.

In response, Antonio made a parallel with the way racism has been treated in football and that the livelihoods of players agreed to have displayed racist behavior was not significantly impacted.

“I am not condoning anything that he [Zouma] has done. I don’t agree with what he has done at all,” Antonio made sure to point out.

However, Antonio said he had questions about the response to Zouma’s actions. Zouma could face up to four years in a French prison, as citizens of that country can be charged for criminal acts carried out overseas.

“But there are persons who have been convicted of racism and have played football afterwards. They’ve been punished, got an eight-game suspension or something like that, but people are not calling for them to be sacked, for them to lose their livelihood,” said Antonio.