Kalidou Koulibaly Quotes

A child comes to see his father play, have fun, make people happy, and what does he see? He sees people booing his father for being black. They make monkey noises. They throw bananas at his teammates and all that.

I have been racially abused by fans and players, but sometimes it's just a way to get under your skin.

At school, I was frequently subjected to racial abuse.

When I played, I received racial abuse but I was just one of a few black players and we weren't backed up by the authorities.

The fact that I was black and desirous to do my work, the other kids would call me a coconut, as if I were somehow attempting to be white. The bullying was real: I'd get punched, spat at, terrible things.

They don't pay me enough to take any racial abuse. If you come up to me and say something racially, I'm going to take your head off.

Of course you don't want to hear racist chants, but sometimes, as a player, you have to take it.

I was 11 years old and was racially abused on the pitch. It was obviously disappointing to hear it at such a young age.

There's a lot of racism when I was in the Navy, and I had to deal with that.

I was brought up in a football environment where we saw a lot of racism - whether it was abuse from other players or huge groups of supporters in away matches.

When I started at Portsmouth in 1974 there was a strong National Front element in the crowd and they would abuse me even though I played for their team. Racist abuse was part of the game and it was never challenged.

I get racist letters all the time from people who aren't Bradford City supporters. You just laugh at them, tear them up and throw them in the bin.

I remember going to stadiums and huge sections of the stand gave you racial abuse. It was never nice but it wasn't a surprise - particularly when I was first at Spurs.

If Man United and Liverpool fans feel better by calling me a black monkey in my messages... feel free to carry on if it makes your day better.

When I was a kid, it was very common to go places and get racially abused, starting from age six all the way up until you got into the first team.

Credit to all the clubs, if there are incidents anywhere I think the clubs are very quickly on that and are banning supporters who are making racial comments. I think clubs are very much on top of what they see.

It's a horrible feeling to be mocked and ridiculed because of your race.

Sometimes, the fact that you're a footballer makes you think that racism can't happen to you because you bring that passion and you express a lot of things. When it happened to me, I couldn't believe it, and in that moment, I decided to walk off the pitch.

I had a funny last name, and I didn't look like everybody else, and I got faced with a lot of racism.

I don't think there are many people out there - except, perhaps, the odd Twitter troll who knows no better - who believes that racially abusing people or threatening people is the right way to go.

If you're racist and you come out and say it's because of Brexit, then great. Then I know definitely not to talk to you, rather than you give me a sideways glance in a shop. Now I know, I've seen your Facebook post.

There should be consequences that happen when you say things about people, especially racist things.

I get racist stuff all the time.

I used to sleep on floors and face racial abuse.

I get some letters from a lot of people. Sometimes it's nice, with letters from kids or from parents of kids who want to be tennis players, but I also get racist letters. It's really painful to receive something like that because you're not ready for that. You think to yourself, 'That's really bad.' But I realise that there are people like that.