Manchester United sustained their first defeat under Ruben Amorim with a 2-0 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium. But even before the game kicked off, the club was thrown into controversy regarding what happened in the match before that.
The Athletic’s senior journalist Adam Crafton revealed information about Man United players’ stance on representing the LGBTQ+ community in their 4-0 win over Everton.
It was revealed that players had refused to wear a special rainbow design jackets by Adidas for the occasion to show support for the LGBTQ+ community and as a way of ‘representing’ them on the pitch.
The player who was specifically name-checked to almost ‘spearhead’ this snub was their summer signing Noussair Mazraoui.
It’s claimed that the Moroccan defender refused to wear the LGBTQ+ attire because of his Islamic faith, and his teammates followed suit as a means of supporting him.
The Red Devils’ official LGBTQ+ club have acknowledged the right to respect an individual’s opinion, but voiced their disappointment at the club.
Manchester United’s official statement on the matter seemingly worked towards showing support for Mazraoui, as they stated: “Players are entitled to hold their own individual opinions, particularly in relation to their faith, and these may sometimes differ from the club’s position.”
Mazraoui has divided opinions after being outed as the person behind this ‘snub’, but has earned a lot of praise from fans too. The individual who has ended up getting into hot water and earn unnecessary hate is Adam Crafton, simply for doing their job as a journalist at breaking the news.
He has been slammed for trying to demean Mazraoui and trigger criticism towards the in-form defender simply for having different views. Not just that, but Crafton has even claimed that he’s been victim of death threats on Twitter.
The Athletic reporter has always been open and defiant about being homosexual and even brandished the rainbow flag on his Twitter bio. But some users discovered that Crafton had removed the LGBTQ+ symbol from his bio, and decided to call him out for trying to ‘hide’ after exposing the Mazraoui news.
This forced The Athletic journalist to reveal that he’s been forced to remove it from his bio because of the several death threats received after publishing the news regarding Manchester United’s snub.
It turns out that many maniac supporters intimidated him by swearing of lethal consequences as they blame him for trying to cause disrepute to the club.
There is a belief that the journalist is actually an Israeli sympathizer and trying to indulge criticism towards Mazraoui is his way of making the defender pay for his pro-Palestinian views.
Crafton has even been blamed for trying to spread Islamophobia in his efforts to get Mazraoui ‘cancelled’. There is no proof that the Moroccan defender will be cancelled, as he played the entire game against Arsenal hours after this news broke.
Nor is there any evidence that the journalist is anti-Muslim or a ‘zionist’ because he’s never publicly vented anger at either Israel or Islam. The backlash towards him is just a case of some hot-headed fans trying to suppress Crafton from breaking controversial stories, which is unlikely to be successful.
