Fans racially abuse three black French players after World Cup final defeat

• Benzema calls time on international career France trio, Aurelien Tchouameni, Kingsley Coman and Randal Kolo Muani, all received racial abuse on their social media accounts in the aftermath of their national team’s World Cup final defeat, reports thenational.com. 

Coman and Tchouameni both missed penalties during the shootout in which Argentina won 4-2 after an entertaining 3-3 draw in Qatar, while Muani had a chance to win the game for France late in extra time, but was denied by Emiliano Martinez. 

The trio were bombarded with vile messages – including monkey and banana emojis – once Argentina were crowned champions on Sunday. 

The abuse of Tchouameni, 22, Coman, 26, and Kolo Muani, 24, is reminiscent of the abuse Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka received after they missed penalties in England’s Euro 2020 final defeat. 

Real Madrid’s Tchouameni has now limited comments on his Instagram posts, while Eintracht Frankfurt’s Kolo Muani has turned them off. 

Bayern Munich’s Coman is currently accepting comments on his posts. 

The Athletic contacted Meta, the company which owns Instagram, as well as Facebook and WhatsApp, for comment.  A Meta spokesperson said: “We don’t want racist abuse on Instagram, and we’ve removed the disgusting comments for breaking our rules. 

“We also want to help protect people from having to see this abuse in the first place, which is why we’ve developed Hidden Words, a feature that filters offensive comments and DMs, and Limits, which hides comments and DMs from people who don’t follow you, or only followed you recently. 

“We’re in touch with players and their teams directly, including since yesterday’s final, to offer them support and help them turn on these tools.”

Meanwhile, France