Luton Town have again been forced to speak out against racist abuse on social media after assistant manager Chris Powell was targeted online in the aftermath of Saturday’s 2-1 League One win over Stevenage at Kenilworth Road.
The incident came despite the match itself being remembered by supporters for the result and the sight of assistant manager Chris Powell’s exuberant celebrations at full-time. Instead, as has become a depressingly familiar pattern, the club say a Luton win broadcast on television was quickly followed by racist abuse aimed at the former England coach.
In a strongly worded statement, the club stressed that the account responsible does not appear to belong to a supporter of either Luton Town or Stevenage, and highlighted ongoing frustration at both the persistence of abuse and the lack of meaningful consequences for those responsible.
Luton Town said: “So, Luton Town win another football match and it happens again. And we’re not just talking about Chris Powell’s unbridled post-match celebration after Saturday’s win over Stevenage at Kenilworth Road. Racism. On Instagram.
“As sure as night follows day, a Luton win on TV is followed by a vile message aimed at one of our black players, or in this case, a member of staff.
“And let’s be clear from the off, as these things are often misunderstood. This does not appear to be a supporter of Luton Town or Stevenage. It’s come from a German account that has no previous posts about English football.”
The club explained that they had considered publicly naming the individual responsible but chose not to inflame the situation further, despite the abuse being posted openly.
They added: “We thought long and hard about whether to share the name of the person who posted it, but decided not to spark a witch-hunt – although by posting a racial slur on one of our videos, that person advertised themselves anyway.
“They didn’t even bother sliding into Chris’ DMs, as we’ve seen so often in the past with abuse of Elijah Adebayo, Teden Mengi, Gabe Osho, Carlton Morris, Tahith Chong and Peter Kioso, to name a few.”
The statement also lays bare the toll repeated incidents are taking on players and staff, particularly when previous cases have taken months to reach court and resulted in limited punishment.
Luton said: “We’re now tired of saying we’re tired. We’re saddened by hearing our black players say they aren’t bothered about following reports through. Especially when we wait over a year for a perpetrator, a criminal, to be brought to court and be fined a measly couple of hundred quid, and not even be given an automatic football banning order.
“Going on previous examples, we wouldn’t even get that far with this one anyway with it coming from an overseas account, which sadly falls out of our equally frustrated local and UK police’s jurisdiction.”
The club said the decision to publish the abuse was about showing supporters what those associated with Luton Town continue to face simply for doing their jobs.
They continued: “So we’re posting it here and letting everyone see what our friends, our Luton family, have to endure for simply winning a game of football.
“We stand with Chris Powell and all victims of online discriminatory abuse.
“What we won’t stand for is the abuse continuing and nothing being done about it.
“The social media companies need to do more to prevent these people committing crimes via a keyboard.
“And that action needs to start right now.”
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