Fans of North London football club, Arsenal, were disgusted by a comment shared on Instagram by the club’s ambassador and Bollywood star Esha Gupta, which compared Nigerian football star Alex Iwobi to a gorilla.
The apologetic Esha Gupta shared a screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation to her 3.4 million followers on Instagram on Sunday bearing a message she received from a Varun_Gupta17 which read: “Solves our winger issues. I can’t see that gorilla faced Iwobi running down the flank again. He’s so bad ya.”“Hahahahahaha I honestly dunno why they don’t bench him more,” she replied and Varun_Gupta17 responded: “It’s like evolution stopped for him. Didn’t change from Neanderthal to man.”
Despite quickly deleting the message after a backlash, fans of the team screenshotted the racist post and called her out on Twitter while demanding the sack of the Indian actress and model.
“Guys I’m sorry you thought it was racist. Was bad on my part, being a sports lover, Wallah meant it. Sorry guys forgive the stupidity,” she tweeted her apology. She added: “It was us discussing our frustration during the game.sorry as I din realise it directed towards racism.laughed over the spur of the moment, which was the games result in guys. been a victim of racism myself before. But this is not something m proud of. It was a fault, sorry guys.”