Saka: Message was not sent to footballer
A law student who called England footballer Bukayo Saka a ‘monkey’ in an online rant was warned last week that he could go to jail.
Suhel Ali uploaded an audio message on X, calling the winger, 23, a “fucking black piece of shit” after Arsenal’s defeat to Nottingham Forest in May 2023.
Mr Ali, who is currently doing a law degree at City University, admitted sending an offensive message by public communication network.
His lawyer told at Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the conviction could “haunt” the 20-year-old for the rest of his life by derailing his hopes of becoming a lawyer.
In the voice note post played during the hearing, the Arsenal fan was heard calling Mr Saka “the shittest winger I’ve ever seen at my club”.
He called Saka a “n–ger” and said: “You’re a monkey – you’re a fucking monkey.”
Prosecutor Suleman Hussain said the police traced his IP address. “In an interview, the defendant made a full and frank admission. He admitted uploading the voice-note himself and said he had only done it because he had become frustrated during the football match.
“The tweet was not intended to be racist and Mr Ali, being of the same ethnicity of Mr Saka, understands how it could be considered racial, but that was not his intention.
“He agreed that the comments were not acceptable and that he wouldn’t like to be the recipient of such comments.”
The prosecutor said that the offence fell into category A for culpability because of the racial hostility demonstrated in the tweets.
Defending, Robert Moxon questioned whether the “desperately sad” conviction could be said to constitute an “offence demonstrating hostility based on race” – more the comments were simply meant to be offensive.
Mr Ali claimed that he used the word monkey to “suggest that Bukayo Saka is dumb”.
His barrister continued: “It was clearly a spur of the moment post because it happened almost immediately after the game. He got frustrated and recorded this note and it gets sent – not to Bukayo Saka – who was not aware of the incident whatsoever.
“He was just firing off some really stupid, offensive remarks about how a footballer played.”
Mr Moxon described Mr Ali as “an intelligent, eloquent, pleasant young man of good character”.
“This is a criminal conviction that’s going to haunt him potentially for the rest of his life, because he wants to be a lawyer.”
District Judge Briony Clarke said the “racial” words were used against a footballer who has in the past been subject to “a number of very unpleasant, vitriolic comments” online.
She ordered pre-sentence reports and said Mr Ali had “committed a deeply unpleasant offence which has been described as a huge mistake and very sad”.
He was bailed ahead of sentence on 8 October, with the judge said she was “not ruling anything out at this stage”.
