Conor Gallagher has been among Chelsea’s standout players in what has been a frustrating first season under Mauricio Pochettino.
Despite persistent rumours of possibly being sold by his childhood club, the Englishman has remained professional and consistent with his performances.
The 24-year-old has been one of the Blues’ most prolific midfielders this season. With four goals and seven assists across all competitions, he also has the second-most assists (5) in the Premier League for his club.
Gallagher has become an undroppable because of his tenacity, high energy levels and admirable output for his side.
In fact, Pochettino has recently made him the captain of the team amid Reece James’ absence. As their leader, he is also inclined to literally lead his Chelsea team out for matches.
That is what Gallagher did in his side’s recent 2-2 draw against Burnley, but something that happened minutes before kick-off has now gone viral.
Being the Chelsea captain, Gallagher was tasked to be in front of the queue to lead out his teammates. The Englishman also had a couple of club mascots around him.
Gallagher started preparing himself to go out on the pitch when a mascot reached his arm out for a high-five. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to see this and inadvertently left him hanging and disappointed.
Now, this kind of incidents are hardly remembered after matches are over. But for some reason, this clip has now spread like wildfire around social media.
The clip where Gallagher leaves the fan hanging has been touted by some as him purposefully ignoring the black child.
A portion of ‘fans’ believe that the Chelsea captain discriminated against the mascot. Initially, the disgust towards him was restricted to Twitter before a lot of ‘fans’ decided to invade his social media.
Gallagher, who has over 1 million followers on Instagram, has seen his latest post bombarded with hate comments.
His usual posts don’t get more than five to ten thousand comments and his most recent one has over 60,000 and counting. This post was made by Gallagher after appearing for England in the March international break, but some supporters are using it to try and ‘send him a message’.
A number of threatening messages have been laid at the Chelsea midfielder.
There are also some who are trying their best to run an online campaign to get Gallagher ‘cancelled’ for being a racist – which would mean having him fired by Chelsea and banished.
But most of those who are pointing such hatred towards Gallagher are doing so on half-baked knowledge.
That is because Gallagher never showed any sign of annoyance or distrust towards the child.
Moments after that viral clip ends, Conor actually took time to interact with the child, put his arm around his shoulder and then gently guided him ahead of him to the Stamford Bridge pitch.
A number of Chelsea supporters are trying to back up their captain by bringing the facts into the fray and dispelling the myth that he’s a racist.
The only reason why Conor ignored the child at that moment wasn’t out of spite – but because he was interacting with another kid and just couldn’t see the one child beside him.
There is also no basis or proof that can show Gallagher’s racist past. He is a beloved figure in the Chelsea dressing room that contains a number of black players. Moreover, Conor’s best friend in the squad is also Levi Colwill – who is himself a person of colour.
The ‘cancellation campaign’ against Gallagher only proves the dangers of social media and how many people are fooled by half-baked evidence that can force them to jump to conclusions.
Gallagher, to his credit, has not responded to being labelled as a racist and is more focused on ensuring that Chelsea finishes the 2023/24 season strongly with the FA Cup title.
