LAST UPDATE | 3 Nov 2021
A FOOTBALL FAN who racially abused England’s Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka after the Euro 2020 final has been sentenced to 10 weeks in jail.
Jonathon Best, 52, posted an 18-second video on Facebook in which he made a “grossly offensive” rant about the players following England’s penalty shootout loss to Italy in July’s match at Wembley.
He was sentenced at Willesden Magistrates’ Court in London on Tuesday after previously pleading guilty to “sending by public communication network a grossly offensive or indecent or obscene or menacing message or matter”.
Rashford, Sancho and Saka, who are all black, received a torrent of online abuse after failing to score their penalties as England failed to win their first trophy since the 1966 World Cup.
The judge, Denis Brennan, said he had considered a suspended sentence but decided to impose a custodial one to deter others.
“The words you used were antediluvian, vile, and offensive — they strike at the very nature of our civilised society and are corrosive,” said Brennan in sentencing him.
Best, a forklift driver from London, was reported to Facebook and the police by a colleague and Facebook friend after refusing to remove his post.
“When approached by a Facebook friend asking him to remove the grossly offensive content, Best replied: ‘It’s my profile, I can do what I want.’,” said prosecutor Elaine Cousins.
“There is absolutely no room in the game, nor elsewhere, for racism. I hope this prosecution goes some way in educating and deterring people from posting hate on social media.”
In August, British police arrested 11 people over racist social media posts following the Euro 2020 final.
Social media giants including Facebook and Twitter came under pressure from political and sporting leaders to clamp down on racist abuse on their platforms.
The showpiece event in London was also marred by violence and crowd disorder as ticketless fans forcibly entered Wembley stadium and clashed with security staff.
England players suffered racial abuse during a 2022 World Cup qualifier in Hungary in September.
Football’s global governing body FIFA subsequently ordered Hungary to play two home games in FIFA competitions behind closed doors — with one of those suspended — and fined 200,000 Swiss francs (€189,000).
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Please stop referring to this guy as a “football fan”
@Niall Brady: why ? European football fans are the worst fans in the world.
@thomas walsh: Thats some painting you’re doing of the entire continent of Europe’s football fans. Go to a game in Germany and you’ll see 95% of opposing fans mix and share pints, seats, and craic at a game. Same for the rest of the continent, and there are a good deal of well mannered football fans in England too, just sadly the hooligism is that bit higher. Even up the road I heard from a friend who attended Derry vs Bohs (as a complete neutral) that it was a great occasion and fans mingled brilliantly. Generalisations don’t get people far these days.
@Niall Brady: unfortunately, he considers himself a football fan and there are many more with a similar outlook. Remember that photo with the snarling Chelsea fans jeering Raheem Sterling.
@Joe Healy: any person who engages in this sort of behaviour is not a football fan
@Niall Brady: you say this because you don’t want to be associated with him or his actions. The truth is, he’s a football fan. He’s also a bike racist. The sphere of football fans has many many like him and until football does something meaningful about it, the issue will get worse. Acknowledge that they are among your ranks and call them out, rather than looking after your own ego and distancing yourself from it all.
@Niall Brady: why, does that term require you to be a decent human?
@Ultan Corcoran: spin it anyway you want but Europe has a serious problem with their football fans. It’s the only sport in the world where you have to literally separate the fans with police officers because they don’t know how to behave themselves. I know it’s not all of them but it sure is a lot of them especially in England
@: if you think that racism in sport is confined, even in the main, to football supporters then you’re deluded.
@Alan McArdle: what other sport do you see this? What other sport do they make gorilla noises and throw monkeys at players? Because I only know one
@thomas walsh: bananas
At 52 you’d think he’d have more sense and see past all that. No doubt lost some friends and his job over it. Best of luck in trying to get new job !!
@Jason Ebbs: exactly 52 ffs. It would still be wrong for a teenager to do it but youth could be some sort of excuse.
@OneClubSince1888: a teenager wouldn’t be caught dead using Facebook to be fair
Antediluvian of or belonging to the time before the biblical flood. Now there’s a word you won’t hear too often. You got to love them judges and there fancy words
@Diarmuid Moore: here’s another fancy word for you: “their”.
@: clown
Hahaha
@Diarmuid Moore: those judges
@Diarmuid Moore: * those, their!
Imagine what he says in private
Good good good
Racism is obviously bad, but 10 weeks in jail? His comments must have been worse than plain old racism, he must have made some kind of threats of physical violence.