Rachel Riley Foreign Fan Fracas

What is usually described as “banter” between those who support rival football teams can take many forms, and many of those involve taking the piss, wind-ups, and on occasion forthright abuse. It goes with the territory, although after her latest unintended excursion into the spotlight, this might not have occurred to Countdown numbers person Rachel Riley, who is from the south-east but claims to be a genuine Manchester United fan.

Rachel Riley

And as a Man U fan, those who support other clubs have to be fair game for a bit of stick. But, as they say, up to a point. After Ms Riley had attempted humour by musing “For an embarrassing amount of this season I’d convinced that Wan Bissaka’s first name was Obi. Just me?” she received unexpected comeback from an Arsenal fan.

Supriyo Banerjee responded “No. Every Man Utd fan is like that. Plastic glory hunter”. Ouch! Come on Rachel! “Says Arsenal fan in India”. Did she say that? Maybe she should have thought twice before saying that. Ms Riley effectively admitted this by following her effort with “For the wilfully obtuse...It might be considered ironic, for someone supporting a club half way around the world, to call someone else a ‘plastic glory hunter’. End of”.

“End of” might just have been in Ron Hopeful territory. Football journalist Dale O’Donnell certainly thought so: “Awful take”. And then came the Oh What A Giveaway moment as the deeply unsavoury David Collier, he of selective action against anti-Semitism, jumped in with both feet and attempted - unsuccessfully - to move the goalposts.

“What on earth... I've been called a glory hunter (LFC supporting Londoner) all my life. Is that antisemitic? Disgraceful you join the haters to attack her over this. Ignorant virtue signalling that just makes you look like a stupid bully. No wonder she blocked you”. What has this got to do with anti-Semitism? Meanwhile, Phil Brown was not pleased.

“What's so funny about this? Perhaps I'm being obtuse as you say in not recognizing your right to insult someone about where they are from & what team they support. Is it just India & Arsenal you have an issue with or is it all foreign nationals who support English teams? It's the juxtaposition of being from a foreign country & supporting an English team, maybe she has an issue with all foreign nationals supporting English teams tbf. I'm no angel myself however I get this insult a lot myself & it's about as funny as an STD”.

Did Ms Riley take this on board? Not as such. Phil Brown later commented “Rachel Riley being Rachel Riley” over s screen shot showing that she had blocked him. He concluded “When you make a mistake, own up, apologize and learn, I make plenty of them. I don't expect she'll pay any professional consequences for this but it doesn't reflect well on her”.

And one Man U supporter has this to say about Ms Riley’s snipe at Banerjee: “But he lives in London. And he called her a plastic because she can’t even name a first choice defender without fucking up his name for shit banter, which is plastic behaviour all day long”. She also called the Countdown numbers person a “Cockney Red”.

So ended yet another of those social media encounters that Rachel Riley could have done without, and ended up looking foolish for her involvement. No surprise there, then.

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