Kick It Out, an organization that aims to get discrimination out of soccer, studied abusive messages on social media directed at Premier League players from August 2014 to March 2015. If you follow the league, you'll be unsurprised to learn that the most abused player was Mario Balotelli, but the degree to which he's the most abused is pretty startling.
Backheel Breakfast: Mario Balotelli gets 4 times as much racist abuse as everyone else
People are really mean to footballers on the internet.
Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
Balotelli got 8,000 abusive tweets, Instagram comments, etc. directed at him in that time period, more than half of which were racist. The second-most? Danny Welbeck with 1,700, half of which were racist. So Balotelli gets both four times more abuse, period, and four times more racist abuse directed at him on the Internet than any other player.
There were 39,000 abusive comments counted in total, so 20 percent of all abuse directed at Premier League players on the internet is at Mario Balotelli.
In the news
On a similar note, Jose Mourinho says Chelsea gets the most abuse as a team because they're boring. (BBC)
The PFA player of the year nominees are out. (PFA)
Manchester United are back to having their whole team injured. (@ManUtd)
Pep Guardiola won’t quit over the medical team walking out at Bayern. Because he was asked, apparently? (Guardian)
Vincent Kompany might miss the rest of the season. (ESPN FC)
Carlo Ancelotti says he thinks he’ll be at Madrid next season, with Iker Casillas. (AS)
Max Allegri, who is bad at math, says the Scudetto race isn’t over. (Football Italia)
You should be reading
Amy Lawrence on how Wayne Rooney beat out Robin van Persie. (Guardian)
Fun with transfer rumors
The section in which nothing should be taken seriously.
Georginio Wijnaldum would like to move to Manchester United. (Manchester Evening News)
Apparently Juventus offered €32m for Paulo Dybala. Palermo wants €40m. (Football Italia)
Thursday’s games
The Europa League’s away teams were all successful.
New York City FC and Philadelphia Union drew. (Brotherly Game)
Check out Copa Libertadores highlights here. (FootballManiaChannel)
What to watch this weekend (click for listings, all times ET)
Norwich vs. Middlesbrough (Friday, 2:45 p.m.) - Friday’s best game is this Championship promotion clash.
Barcelona vs. Valencia (Saturday, 10 a.m.) - Valencia are facing a tough challenge to hold off Sevilla, who just drew Barca, for top four. Barca only lead Real Madrid by two points at the top.
Chelsea vs. Manchester United (Saturday, 12:30 p.m.) - Chelsea should win with all of United’s injuries, but still a properly big game.
Juventus vs. Lazio (Saturday, 2:45 p.m.) - Italy’s top three race is fun, and will get more fun if Lazio drop points here.
Aston Villa vs. Liverpool (Sunday, 10 a.m.) - Tim Sherwood can join Andre Villas-Boas in the former Spurs bosses killing it in their new job club with a trip to the FA Cup final.
Wolfsburg vs. Schalke (Sunday, 11:30 a.m.) - Schalke are running out of chances to get back into a Champions League spot, and need an upset result.
Inter vs. Milan (Sunday, 2:45 p.m.) - Once the world’s best rivalry game, now just the incompetence derby. Should be dumb fun.
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