A second-year City University law student Suhel Ali, who called Arsenal and England football star Bukayo Saka a “monkey” and a “F*ing black piece of s**t” following Arsenal’s 0-1 defeat to Nottingham has dodged jail time.

Westminster Magistrates Court heard 20-year-old Ali, who shares a Nigerian background with Saka, admit to posting the despicable audio message to his Twitter/X in May of last year after Taiwo Awoniyi’s first-half goal for Nottingham crushed the dreams of Arsenal fans everywhere. 

Wembley-based Ali was among those Arsenal fans who were devastated by the results, which saw Arsenal booted from the Premier League and Manchester City taking victory. But Ali went far beyond most fans in his heinous response.  During the posted rant, Ali targeted the 23-year-old Arsenal striker, calling him a “f***ing monkey”, “n*gger” and  “f***ing black piece of s**t". Ali continued, as the court heard him describe Saka as “the shittest winger I’ve ever seen at my club”.

The police found Ali by tracking down his IP address with the help of his own mother, who is of Nigerian heritage and spoke to officers and provided them with Ali’s email address. 

Despite the incriminating recordings, British-Nigerian Ali insisted he was not being racist but rather sent the message out of frustration. Ali’s lawyer, Robert Moxon, argued that he “used the N-word in that tweet but he’s using that not in a racial context but in an offensive context” and that the term “monkey” was used not because Saka is black but to “suggest that [he] is dumb”.

Nonetheless, Westminster magistrates chair Kieran O’Donnell acknowledged “whoever heard it would have heard racial abuse”. O’Donnell added: “But you are of previous good character. You have no previous convictions. You are remorseful”. Ali received a 12-month conditional discharge with £111 costs.

As seen by Saka’s goal against Southampton on Saturday, Saka has proved continuously that his skills are not something to be questioned, nonetheless the young star has been no stranger to racism during his career. When Saka missed a decisive penalty after Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho both missed theirs in the Euro 2020 final, he said he “knew instantly” the racism that would follow. 

Saka received so much vile racist abuse on social media that even the staunchest of modern-day racism deniers could not ignore it. The then 19-year-old player appealed to social media to introduce measures to prevent anyone else experiencing what he alongside Rashford and Sancho had experienced. Saka posted:

“There is no place for racism or hate of any kind in football or any area of society and to the majority of people coming together to call out the people sending these messages, by taking action and reporting these to the police and driving out the hate by being kind to one another, we will win.”