Edwards condemns racist abuse suffered by Luton striker Adebayo as 'deplorable' and 'disgraceful'

Luton boss Rob Edwards has condemned the ‘disgraceful’ and ‘deplorable’ online racist abuse that striker Elijah Adebayo was subjected to after the 1-0 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur recently.

The forward had been recalled by the Hatters for the game which was broadcast live on TNT Sports, missing a great chance just after the break, as with the scores goalless he slid his close-range effort wide of the target.

He wasn’t the only one though, Alfie Doughty volleying wide and Jacob Brown heading over the top, but after the match, the club revealed Adebayo had been targeted on social media and sadly for the 25-year-old forward, not for the first time too.

It led the former Fulham and Walsall striker to declare he was so ‘tired’ of receiving such discrimination that he doesn’t report it to the authorities anymore, although the club have opted to make a stand themselves by treating the incident, and any further ones, as ‘abuse against the club’.

Edwards now wants those who are responsible for such taunts to be dealt with firmly, saying: “It’s shocking, deplorable, I spoke to him a couple of days later as I wasn’t aware immediately afterwards.

"I’m not on social media, so I was made aware, I spoke to Eli and I think the disappointing thing is he’s just become a little bit numb to it as well.

"He reported it, we reported it to the police as well, we’ve gone through the correct channels.

"We want to support Eli, but it’s just disgraceful and we don’t want people like that in the game.

"We’ve supported him, had a chat about it, Elijah’s a grown-up man and unfortunately he’s dealt with it before, a lot.

"I know there’s been a lot of nice messages of support out there as well so I want to thank those people.

"We need to come together and support our players when they do, hopefully it doesn’t happen often or ever again, but when they get that kind of abuse, we can support them, get around them and get the people who are doing it out of the game.

“The fact that he went down the route of ‘I’ve had it before, I’m just used to it now,’ is pretty sad.

"We’ll support him and he’s reacted in a really good way.”