Luton Town condemn the 'shameful' online racist abuse received by Peter Kioso

Luton Town have condemned the 'shameful' online racist abuse received by defender Peter Kioso while celebrating the Hatters’ Championship survival this week.

The 20-year-old former Dunstable Town youngster, who moved to Kenilworth Road from National League side Hartlepool United in the January transfer window, had made his Town and Football League debut in the 1-0 win at Hull City last weekend.

He was then an unused substitute for the game with Blackburn in midweek, which Luton won 3-2, to stay in the second tier.

While celebrating the result in the changing room with his team-mates, Kioso, was using Instagram live when he received the comment 'U look like a monkey' from a so-called supporter of his former side, which has since been reported by Pools to the police.

A statement from the Hatters this morning said: “All at Luton Town are appalled that discriminatory comments can be directed towards anyone in this day and age, but we are especially upset for one of our young players, Peter Kioso, who has been subject to shameful abuse this week – a week when he has made his club and league debut and rightly celebrated his role in helping us survive in the Championship.

“As a club and a town which celebrates equality, diversity and inclusion, we firmly stand behind Peter and all of our minority players and staff regardless of their skin tone, ethnicity or religion.

“We have been helping the police with enquiries to bring the perpetrator of this mindless act to account.

“Racism is unacceptable in person or via any media channel and we believe it is high time that there is a review of how social media channels are categorised to make them more accountable for content distributed over their channels.

“Either identity transparency is exercised to make individuals responsible for their words or, where anonymity, aliases and cloaking is permitted, the carrier becomes liable.

“Enjoy your short break Peter and we look forward to seeing more of you in an orange shirt for seasons to come!”

Writing on Twitter himself, Kioso said: "In 2020 seriously come on, a fan that used to sing my name wants to be doing this.

"This happened on Wednesday night after the boys and I were celebrating such a big thing that we did and I was not going to let that ruin the moment but now that everything has calmed down I feel like I shed light on it to let everyone know how things still are in 2020!!"