Indian-origin referee racially abused on social media following Inter Milan vs Chelsea match

What's the story?

In what can be called shocking and disgusting at the same time, Singaporean referee Sukhbir Singh faced criticism like never before and it wasn't from a manager or football players.

The referee instead faced flak from fans, racist ones at that, in what turned out to be highly humiliating for the man of Indian origin following a string of poor decisions in the International Champions Cup final between Inter Milan and Chelsea.

The game was won 2-1 by Inter in a match that included a bizarre own goal from Geoffrey Kondogbia of Inter. But the game went far beyond just the goals with the referee a regular feature in discussions since the end of the match.

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Sukhbir Singh has had his fair share of critics in the past as well, with managers calling out the referee over bad calls made during matches and in one particular case accusing him of favouritism towards the country of his origin, India, during the SAFF Championship final in 2011 where India played Afghanistan. While his experience at Asian level was there for all to see, the final of such a big event proved too hot to handle for Singh.

The heart of the matter

The horrifying reaction on social media was a whole different story, however. Disgruntled fans tore into the Singaporean of Indian origin with Twitter providing an alarming number of racial attacks and slurs targeting the origin of Sukhbir and his colour. The reaction was well beyond anything that could be imagined and highlighted the embarrassing nature of fans that still exist in the world.

Bad decisions are one thing, racial abuse is quite another. With very little emerging on the story so far, it is hard to tell whether any action will be taken on the matter but it is highly likely that the slurs will continue and remain for all to see. The incident has brought shame to the footballing world by all means.

What's next?

It is indeed shocking to see the lengths that people will go to support their team and the fact that a friendly tournament like the International Champions Cup faces such an outrage is a sign of worrying times for referees from the sub-continent wishing to make it big on the world stage.

Author's take

One can only imagine what Sukhbir Singh and his family are going through looking at the alarming reaction flooding social media. Though footballers have received death threats and racial abuse in the past, for referees making a debut on such a big stage, incidents like these can be real dampeners.