James McClean has publicly called out the FA's lack of action after yet another incident of "sickening" sectarian abuse towards the Ireland winger on Saturday.
McClean lined out for Wigan against his former club Sunderland - and was targeted by some anti-Irish chants from the Sunderland fans.
On Sunday, McClean responded to the abuse from the Sunderland crowd on Instagram, and had some strong words reserved for English football's governing body.
James McClean responds to "sickening" abuse
In the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the Irish women's team being filmed singing 'Celtic Symphony' by the Wolfe Tones, James McClean was one of those to jump to the team's defence, saying "let the people sing their stories and their songs and the music of their native land."
McClean evidently riled up some within English footballing circles and he was yet again on the receiving end of targeted abuse this weekend in the Championship.
Video footage shared by Wigan journalist Paul Kendrick showed the Sunderland fans singing "fuck the IRA" at McClean, while several chants used derogatory language towards the Irish, and called McClean a "fenian bastard".
Here’s the McClean abuse by the way…to ‘prove’ it happened…wasn’t even going to post it as a) it happens most places and b) nothing will ever get done by the authorities. That it’s now so widely accepted that it’s bound to happen is damning. #wafc pic.twitter.com/VpCQeuLB4O
— Paul Kendrick (@PKendrickWIG) October 15, 2022
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The abuse towards Ireland international James McClean is sadly nothing new, and the Ireland man is sick of the FA's lack of action.
In an Instagram post on Sunday, McClean called out what he perceives as hypocrisy from the governing body, and lamented the fact that his children had to witness the abuse he received from the opposition fans.
For my son, who is seven years old and watches every Wigan game - either being at stadium or on Latics TV - to be asking his mother, 'Why are they booing and singing that song at Daddy?' And to have to tip toe around answering him is something which should not be happening.
This post is not one for sympathy (trust me, it is not wanted) but one of anger. Considering every single year we have an FA representative come into each club to discuss the same old crap they spew to us about discrimination. Every single year, I challenge them on the abuse. Every single year, they do nothing.
This clip is one [from] yesterday, which can be heard clearly of one particular chant, as well as other chants of ‘f**k the pope and IRA’, being sung by the majority of the 30k crowd, as well as numerous individual chants of 'fenian bastard, fenian c**t', 'you dirty Irish c**t'.
[This was] while displaying a tribute before game honouring Niall Quinn, who is also the same nationality as myself. Couldn’t make the stupidity up. Now, everyone who attended the game would have heard this loud and clear including the referee, match officials and other officials! I should not have to report every single incident when clearly they can all hear what I hear, and they should be doing their job by taking action!
I would be lying if I was to say I expect anything to be done about this by the FA and EFL (history shows this) but here is ANOTHER CHANCE, sure. And I certainly don’t expect any action to be taken by Sunderland themselves, given they did nothing when I was their player.
For the uneducated, which will always cling on to a certain picture to justify their argument to say 'he brings it on himself', this picture, which turned out to be not my best joke, occurred in 2020. Myself as well as my family have been on the end of sickening abuse since November 2012. For those you can’t grasp that, that is eight years of sickening abuse.
The FA have since announced that they will investigate the incident, saying that they "strongly condemn all forms of discriminatory and offensive chanting".
Wigan chairman Talal Al Hammad also released a statement on the James McClean controversy, saying:
As a club, we are doing everything in our power to stop this from happening however more importantly as mature adults, this should not be happening.
Your behaviour is watched by those younger than you, children, teenagers; the younger generation and is a disgraceful demonstration of how one should behave. So much emphasis and effort is put into the younger generation and the prevention in bullying - how can we teach kids to not bully other children at school when adults are doing it themselves.
Hurting a human emotionally is as equal as hurting them physically; how come physical abuse has consequences but this doesn't?
More times than not, action is only taken when it's too late, when a person has been hurt either by other "adults" or by themselves after enduring emotional and mental abuse. It is shameful and disgusting and needs to stop.
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