He was one of the break-out young stars of the Olympic football tournament, lighting-up the U.S. men’s team’s performances.
But instead of reflecting on the positives after the side’s run to the quarter-finals in France, Kevin Paredes spent the days following defeat by Morocco last week dealing with a barrage of racial abuse and death threats sent to him and his family.
It was a torrent of hate provoked by that increasingly damaging spectre of the social media age — fake news: in this case, falsified remarks attributed to him before the game which were derisory about the Morocco team.
The Athletic has been unable to pinpoint where the quotes first appeared. But the Instagram posts purporting to quote Paredes use a version of the following: “I don’t know this Morocco you are talking about, all I know is that we are winning the match tomorrow.”
“I was like: ‘This is not me or who I am as a person.’ Of course I knew who their team was,” he says.
Now the 21-year-old wants to speak out about the vitriol he received and the pernicious toll it can take on someone’s mental health.
Talking to The Athletic after joining pre-season preparations with his German club Wolfsburg, the midfielder said he felt compelled to post a message on his Instagram account denying the quotes in a desperate attempt to end the saga.
“I’ve experienced some racist remarks throughout my career before, but definitely not death threats,” he says. “I’ve seen some things but nothing really touched me like this touched me.
“It just started getting really personal and I didn’t understand what was happening. What they were saying didn’t come out of my mouth; nor would it ever come out of my mouth.
“In this day and age, everyone believes everything on social media. So it has so much power and it can really ruin someone’s mental health or just their mind in general.
“When it got to the point where it was about my family… I’m really emotional about my family. It was a lot to handle.”
It started on the morning of game day in Paris.
The U.S. had recovered from a 3-0 defeat by the hosts France in their opening game, when they performed strongly despite the scoreline, to beat New Zealand 4-1 and Guinea 3-0 as they qualified for the knock-out stage.
Paredes scored twice against Guinea and created one of the goals against New Zealand, establishing himself as one of the players to watch in the tournament.
Paredes scores against Guinea (Andrea Vilchez/ISI/Getty Images)
But as he prepared to face Morocco, who would go on to win bronze by beating Egypt 6-0 on Thursday, the youngster from South Riding, Virginia, noticed an unusual amount of messages flashing up on his phone.
“It was about 9:30am,” he says. “First thing I did was check messages from friends and family and then went on to my Instagram and I started seeing a slow rise of Moroccan fans into my DMs and in the comments on my pictures. It started out things like ‘You’re gonna see who Morocco is today’, so I didn’t really think too much of it because it’s a big game, it’s the Olympics.
“The soccer pages mostly used pictures of me versus Achraf Hakimi (the Morocco captain) in their match-up previews. And I know Moroccans are really passionate fans so I wasn’t really thinking of anything of it. I just had to focus on my game.”
Paredes was the U.S.’s best player during the subsequent 4-0 defeat. But the opposition had done their homework, subjecting him to a string of fouls to neutralise his threat.
Bilal El Khannouss challenges Paredes (Brad Smith/ISI/Getty Images)
Morocco’s Bilal El Khannous was booked for one in the second half, but by that stage the damage was done.
Despite switching flanks to try to find more space down the left, Paredes was frustrated. He was fouled six times in the game — the next highest number of fouls on a player was two.
Whether the Morocco players were aware of the false quotes prior to kick-off is unclear. But during the game one of Paredes’ team-mates told him some Moroccan fans had been chanting about him and saying his name. Again, he put it down to football rivalry.
“I was just focused on the game and I didn’t hear it,” he recalls. “But I get back into the locker room and my phone just kept buzzing — going off, off, off — and I’m like, ‘Oh my God what’s happening?
“I was really emotional because I believed in this group and myself that we could have won a medal.”
A distraught Paredes at the final whistle (Andrea Vilchez/ISI/Getty Images)
On TikTok, a post appeared with video footage of Paredes speaking to a TV camera without the accompanying audio but a text caption saying, “Kevin Paredes before the match with Morocco: ‘In all honesty, I have never heard of this team and I don’t know the players.’”
Another TikTok post shows various pictures of Paredes with a caption which, translated from French, says: “Kevin Paredes, a player for the American national team, admitted that he did not know the Moroccan national team before their clash. But after a crushing defeat of four to zero. He will never be able to forget her again.”
Most posts were published after the game. One, from a Ghanaian Instagram account called Maverick Sports Center, used a picture of Hakimi consoling a crying Paredes after the final whistle with the caption: “Kevin Paredes was interviewed before the Morocco vs USA match about what he thinks the result of the match will be against Morocco, unfortunately he was too arrogant that he said: ‘I don’t know this Morocco you are talking about, all I know is that we are winning the match tomorrow.’
“Morocco replied in the field (4-0) and reminded the kid that Morocco was the first country in the world to recognize the newly independent United States, opening its ports to American ships by decree of Sultan Mohammed III in 1777, and that the oldest treaty of peace and friendship in USA history is the one singed (sic) between Morocco and USA in the year 1786 (there is more to say…).
“Also, Achraf Hakimi showed beautiful manners; he was seen consoling Kevin Paredes after Morocco eliminated the US in the Olympics.”
When asked to clarify that post by The Athletic, the account’s co-founder, Ibrahim Bah AbdulRahman, said: “It’s crucial to recognise that our misinterpretation resulted in online abuse towards such a talented player and we take full responsibility for the misunderstanding.”
If Paredes was not overly ruffled by the messages before the game, they got much worse after it ended.
“I finish my shower, I get back and it’s just still going and going,” he says of the hours after the game at Parc des Princes. “Every single time I refresh, there are 1,000 more comments and when I check my DMs (direct messages) there are 1,000 new ones.”
He tried to switch off the comments on most of his posts but discovered that some — published in collaboration with his club or the national team — he could not immediately limit.
“I was a bit worried because it just kept going. I turned off my DMs and put my phone aside, but I was really worried about what was coming,” he says.
“So I tried to let it go, go off social media, and just take time to regroup. But it kept going and got to a point where it was like, ‘I can’t go on social media’ because it was on everything I saw. A couple of TikToks that had over 100,000 likes with a million views.
“It was just my face and these remarks meant to be from before the game disrespecting the players, disrespecting the country.
“Then it got even more personal to the point where I got death threats to my family, to my brothers. One brother started getting comments as well to his Instagram. I don’t think it’s too hard to find my brothers in terms of just our last name, you know.
“And yeah, then that really touched me a bit too much. As a player I understand some of these things can happen, but when it comes to your family and in terms of death threats and all this racist stuff… that’s where you have to draw a line and take a stand.
“I have an incredible team around me that advised me to keep calm for a couple of days and maybe it would pass. But when it got to the point where it got to my family, I said: ‘I can’t take this anymore.’ I had to say something to clarify everything — that it wasn’t me, that I’m not a bad person, that I wouldn’t disrespect anyone.”
Paredes says that since he posted his rebuttal on his Instagram story, he has had hundreds of apologies and messages of support from Moroccans. One, who had sent him a racist insult, followed up his bile with a private retraction.
“It kind of does something to your head, but to get it all clarified was a big weight off my shoulders.” he says. “I have all respect for the Moroccan fans, the players, and it’s not my character to say anything arrogant like that.”
Being lied about is one thing, but being harassed for the colour of his skin is another.
He recalls reaching out to his team-mates from the senior roster after some received racist abuse following the team’s early exit from the Copa America tournament in the U.S. in July.
A few weeks later, he found himself the victim.
“I don’t really understand it at all,” he says. “I texted the guys, just supporting them, and then a few weeks later it happens to me and I’m just like, wow, I didn’t know this would happen when I first picked up the ball. I never knew I could cause this much hate or distraction or something for just being who I am.
“I’ve learned how to deal with people not liking my game, but people calling me straight out a monkey and stuff like this, you know… it does too much to someone’s head. All I love to do is just play football.
“I hope with my game, I bring smiles and some positive vibes to everyone that enjoys what I do. For me, this was definitely a scare.”
Hakimi consoles Paredes (Andrea Vilchez/ISI/Getty Images)
The future is still bright for Paredes, and another moment of positivity came via the consolatory words offered to him, as he wept after the game, by Paris Saint-Germain defender Hakimi.
“Once the final whistle hit I just couldn’t believe what just happened,” says Paredes. “As the tournament was going on my belief in the team and myself kept growing. I could see the gold medal close. I felt like it was my job to push the team.
“So to look up at the scoreboard and see that we had four scored past us and my job is to score and create and I didn’t do either… it hurt. The pictures of me crying hold a lot of meaning because it just shows how much this sport, and representing the U.S. means to me and how badly I wanted to win.
“I felt a hand on me and at that moment I just wanted to be left alone, but I look up and saw it was Hakimi. I was really shocked. He tells me that I played a great game, a great tournament and I have a really bright future and will do big things in my career.
“Hearing this from such a well-respected player in football, I would say one of the best right-backs in the world right now, was so powerful. He didn’t have to do that.
“They just advanced to the semi-final and he took his time to come over to console and encourage me.
“Hopefully one day I can be in the type of status that he is. I’m just gonna hold that moment for the rest of my life.”
(Top photo: John Todd/ISI/Getty Images)
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