England midfielder Conor Gallagher has recently come under fire from fans who claim the Chelsea star is a racist after an apparent snub of a fellow England staff member.
The controversy came to light recently when a video of Gallagher making his way down the tunnel with his England team mates caught the eye of fans.
The entire squad can be seen giving high fives and interacting with one of England’s staff as they made their way towards the pitch, with Gallagher being the only player among them to show no recognition to the staff member.
In fact, after several watches, it can even be said that Gallagher deliberately looks away and ignores the England staff member as they patted him on the shoulder and wished him luck in the game.
As if the video (below) wasn’t damning enough for the England midfielder, fans then took to the comments section to air their grievances with Gallagher.
@rizzma69 💀💀💀💀#gallagher ♬ original sound – King of ohio
Fans made their feelings towards Conor Gallagher’s alleged racist snub clear in the comments section of the video, with one saying “This is like the 8th clip of him doing something this ain’t no coincidence”, whilst another commented “He not even tryna hide it”
Back in April of this year, Gallagher was also spotted ignoring a high-five from a young Black mascot when exiting the tunnel to take on Burnley at Stamford Bridge.
The club say that they condemn any abuse towards Gallagher for the incident, and insist that the situation was “taken out of context” – with Gallagher walking out onto the pitch with the mascot after the initial incident.
Mauricio Pochettino said at the time “”I know Conor. I can speak for the people I know. Come on, that was never was his intention.”
The video of this incident can be seen below – with Pochettino insisting that Gallagher was simply focused on the game and not deliberately snubbing the young mascot.
@africanstream Chelsea's star midfielder, Conor Gallagher, faces accusations of racism after this clip went viral. It shows the footballer apparently blanking a Black boy who was the match mascot for last Saturday’s game with Burnley. The club says it was taken out of context and Gallagher was seen with his arm around the youngster as they walked onto the pitch. Blues coach Mauricio Pochettino also defended his player, putting it down to pre-match jitters. However, that hasn’t stopped the 24-year-old suffering an online backlash. Chelsea’s been marred by a string of recent racism scandals. In 2018, their fans abused their current midfielder, Raheem Sterling, when he played for Man City. The year before that, four Chelsea supporters were convicted of racial violence after pushing a Black man off a train in Paris while fans chanted: 'We are racist and that’s the way we like it.' In 2012, the English FA fined Chelsea captain John Terry £220,000 and banned him for four games over racist comments made to fellow player Anton Ferdinand. There’s no telling for certain why Gallagher ignored the Black boy's high five, but it’s not a good look. Have a watch and give us your view on what happened. #Chelsea #MidFielder #ConorGallagher #Accusations #Racism #ViralVideo #Footballer #BlackBoy #BackLash #ManCity #Paris #fyp ♬ Torpid Move – DJ BAI
Whether Gallagher’s actions were intentional or not, racism in the game of football still remains a huge problem. It was only the end of last month that the US Soccer Federation condemned racist abuse from USA fans following their defeat to Panama in the Copa America.
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