Poor Mario Balotelli. Anti-discrimination organization Kick It Out has found that Balotelli has been racially abused on social media more than 4,000 times, out of a total of more than 8,000 discriminatory messages directed at him.
Through an analysis of discriminatory messages on social media, Kick It Out found that Chelsea is the most abused team in the Premier League, on the receiving end of about 20,000 discriminatory posts, with Liverpool not far behind with about 19,000. Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United also were targeted by more than 10,000 posts each.
The vast majority of discriminatory posts, 88 percent, came from Twitter, although Kick It Out was careful to note that private profiles, the vast majority of which are on Facebook, were not included in the study.
Three players were singled out by Kick It Out as "case studies" for abuse. They were Balotelli, Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck. Sturridge and Welbeck each had more than 1,000 discriminatory posts aimed at them, but neither one approached the sheer volume of hate directed at Balotelli.
"Why always me" indeed.
You can read the whole study here.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com, or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus
