De Bruyne faces race to Euro 2020; Sterling, Walker get racist abuse

Kevin De Bruyne is a major doubt for Belgium’s Euro 2020 campaign after suffering two facial fractures in Manchester City’s Champions League final defeat to Chelsea on Saturday.

De Bruyne was helped off the field in tears after colliding with Antonio Rudiger on the hour mark in Porto. The midfielder’s left eye immediately appeared swollen.

Without his creativity, Chelsea comfortably held out for a 1-0 win to keep City waiting for Champions League glory.

“Just got back from the hospital,” De Bruyne posted on his Twitter account on Sunday.

“My diagnosis is acute nose bone fracture and left orbital fracture. I feel okay now. Still disappointed about yesterday obviously but we will be back.”

Belgium’s first match of the Euro is in 11 days’ time against Russia in Saint Petersburg.

Roberto Martinez’s team then face Denmark and Finland in what should be a comfortable group for the number one ranked side in the world.

Meanwhile, Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Kyle Walker were racially abused on Instagram after the team’s 1-0 loss to Chelsea in Saturday’s Champions League final, and the social media firm has removed the accounts of those guilty.

Sky Sports reported that the pair were sent monkey emojis on their Instagram pages after the game. Sterling was also targeted following City’s semi-final win over Paris St Germain, shortly after English soccer’s social media boycott campaign came to an end earlier this month.

“The racist abuse sent to these players last night is abhorrent and we don’t want it on Instagram,” a representative of Facebook, which owns Instagram, said in a statement on Sunday.

“We swiftly removed a number of comments and accounts for breaking our rules and we’re continuing to review and take action against those that violate our policies.”

It added that: “No single thing will fix this challenge overnight but we’re committed to doing what we can to keep our community safe from abuse.”

Several players at Premier League clubs have been targeted in the past few months, including United’s Anthony Martial, Liverpool’s Trent-Alexander Arnold and Sadio Mane and Chelsea’s Reece James.

Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford said that he had been subjected to “at least 70 racial slurs” on social media after Wednesday’s defeat by Villarreal in the Europa League final.

In February, English football bodies sent an open letter to Facebook and Twitter, urging them to block and swiftly take down offensive posts, as well as to improve the verification process for users.

Instagram has announced new measures and Twitter vowed to continue its efforts after taking action on over 700 cases of abuse related to soccer in Britain in 2019.

Britain said this month a planned new law would see social media firms fined up to 10% of turnover or 18 million pounds ($25 million) if they failed to stamp out online abuse, while senior managers could also face criminal action.

Agencies