A TikTok video of Belgian football club KAA Gent's youth players (aged 7 and 8) having fun in the changing room drew over 200 racist comments, which have now all been removed by the club.
The video shows some boys playing for KAA Gent's U9 team (players under 9 years old) singing along to the song 'Interessant' by Belgian rapper Jinho 9. Not long after the video was posted, several people reacted with racist and insulting comments such as "Formerly KAA Gent, now FC Congo" or "Is this KAA Gent or the U8 of Kenya?"
KAA Gent closely monitors the reactions on all its social media accounts and immediately intervened by deleting some comments and using its official account to firmly state that these kinds of responses were racist and therefore not allowed.
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However, that response from the club proved to be insufficient, which is why all comments were deleted and new comments can no longer be posted to the video. "Everyone in the club is astonished," Sven Vannerom of KAA Gent told Het Nieuwsblad. "Of the 500 reactions to the video, at least 200 were racist or hateful in nature."
The video itself is still online and will remain so, Vannerom said. "Taking it offline would be like giving in to those racist commenters. We are indeed a multicultural youth academy, where everyone is welcome. That video will just stay online."
