Daniel Feliciano

Thu 10 February 2022 20:30, UK

Paul Pogba appears to have shown his support for West Ham star Michail Antonio by reposting footage of his comments on racism to his Instagram page.

Antonio was stopped by reporters outside the West Ham training ground and quizzed about teammate Kurt Zouma’s punishment after footage emerged of him kicking his pet cat.

The French defender was fined £250,000 and had his cats taken away from him, while also losing a sponsorship deal with boot maker adidas.

Antonio was asked if the punishment was harsh enough, and the striker turned the tables on the reporter asking if they believed the crime committed was worse than racism and comparing the punishments handed out for that in the past.

Now Pogba has echoed that sentiment by resharing the footage on his Instagram story for his 51.6 million followers to see.

Pogba and Zouma are known to be very close friends off the pitch, while playing together at international level for France too.

Awareness

Nobody has defended what Zouma did and nobody intends to either. What he did was abhorrent and wrong.

However, what Antonio says certainly has truth to it and the reaction by many to this whole situation has been quite amazing to see when compared to previous crimes.

Someone like Luis Suarez was banned for eight games for racially abusing Patrice Evra, but after that was served it was largely forgotten about and he was allowed to continue playing.

We’ve also seen several Premier League stars convicted of drink driving in the past, yet nobody has batted an eyelid.

Zouma did a terrible thing, and has been punished. If he were to be dropped by the club for a period of time, that would also be warranted. But with people calling for him to be sacked and imprisoned, Antonio’s comments are thought provoking and correct.

Paul Pogba possibly agrees too, so maybe it’s time to let it lie.

In other West Ham news, Declan Rice discusses his West Ham future with Gary Neville on The Overlap