The forward, who suffered from the same racial slurs in 2020, has spoken out about the acerbic episode after his team-mate was subjected to a similar treatment in the top-flight contest over the weekend
Ghana international striker Iñaki William has said he is really ''proud to be black'' after seeing his Spanish-born Moroccan team-mate Maroan Sannadi racially abused by the Espanyol fans during their 1-1 draw game in the Spanish La Liga on Sunday.
The 30-year-old frontman lodged a complaint to the match official Cuadra Fernández following the racial vituperation hurled against his team-mate at the RCDE Stadium during the first-half of the encounter. The game eventually got halted by the referee as protocol demands over such incident in the Spanish top-flight.
ln registering his total displeasure, the Bilbao-born striker said he feels an absolute satisfaction over his skin colour after witnessing various degree of racial abuse by fans so far in his career.
''It's a shame that four people can tarnish what football is all about, it's a pitch where you can breathe football, where legends like N'Kono have played. It's a shame that the match has to be stopped, this tarnishes football. Measures must be taken, I hope they catch the person who did it. When they insult a teammate, I take it as if it were happening to me. Four fools can't tarnish what we are or have the skin we have,'' the forward fired as being quoted by Newspaper Mundo Deportivo.
He continued with his fire-spitting over the acerbic episode at the RCDE Stadium: ''It's surprising that the stadium then took it out on me. I'm proud to be black, Basque, to have been born in Bilbao... That they boo someone who reports racist insults is not the path we have to follow, we have to try to improve as people.''
He has so far netted 8 and assisted 8 in 34 games across all competitions for Athletic Bilbao in this ongoing 2024-25 football campaign.
The ex-Spanish U21 goal poacher currently boasts of 17 caps with the Ghana Senior Men's National Team, the Black Stars with 1 goal to his name since switching nationality allegiance to represent the West African powerhouse in 2022.
