Wolverhampton Wanderers head coach Rob Edwards has revealed that striker Tolu Arokodare endured a deeply difficult week following a wave of racist abuse directed at the Nigerian international after he missed a penalty in the club’s 1-0 Premier League defeat to Crystal Palace.
Edwards addressed the situation at a pre-match press conference on Thursday, describing the impact the online attacks had on the forward while outlining the support structures put in place by the club.
“It’s been a really difficult week for him. He was upset and angered by it, understandably so,” Edwards told the club’s official website.
The Wolves manager said he held personal conversations with Arokodare and also addressed the matter with the squad as a group.
“We’ve supported him, and I’ve had a few individual chats with him. We’ve spoken about it as a group as well, to make sure that we get around him and support him. Then he’s had overwhelming support from a lot of Wolves fans and other people reaching out, which is really good.”
Edwards confirmed that the Premier League had also been in contact with the club and expressed frustration that such incidents continue to occur with alarming regularity.
“The Premier League have been in touch, so there’s support there, but again, we’re talking about something that we’re having to do far too many times. There have been a number of very high-profile instances over this last week, which is really sad.”
The coach noted that several of his players had faced similar abuse throughout his managerial career, adding that the persistence of such incidents made it particularly painful.
“Since I’ve been a manager, there’s been a number of times when my players have had to deal with this, and the sad thing about it is that all of them have had it before, and that’s really tough to hear.”
Edwards also pointed to the challenge of identifying perpetrators, noting that much of the abuse appeared to originate from anonymous accounts operating across different parts of the world.
“Without knowing how certain accounts are able to be opened or accessed, I know a lot of the abuse has come from accounts from maybe the other side of the world, and it’s difficult to track these people down.”
He added that Arokodare would be asked to give a formal statement to investigators in the coming days, while calling on social media companies to do more to tackle discrimination on their platforms.
“The authorities and the police know. Tolu will be asked to give a statement at some stage over the next few days, but it becomes difficult to stop that without going into the social media companies and the ones that are actually giving them the platform, and whether they can do more — I’m sure they can — then we’ll be hearing a lot more about it.”
The UK Football Policing Unit has launched an investigation into the attacks amid broader concerns about racist abuse targeting players across the Premier League.