Minnesota United veteran defender Michael Boxall was back at training in Blaine on Friday, four days after he was at the center of an incident in an international friendly against Qatar. Boxall and his New Zealand national team did not play the second half of that game in Austria after they claimed he was racially abused by an opponent.
His phone blew up soon after the game with messages of support.
"I got too many messages," Boxall told the Star Tribune on Friday. "It's great that everyone reached out and showed some love, but it's nothing I want to get a few hundred messages about."
Anyone who knows Boxall knows he has never aspired to trend worldwide.
"No, I like to stay off the radar," he said.
Yet that's where he was after he and his teammates accused Qatar player Yusuf Abdurisag of making a comment to Boxall in the 40th minute that angered the team. New Zealand refused to play the second half after the referee took no action at halftime.
On Friday, Boxall did not reveal exactly what was said to him. He said the comment wasn't specifically a racial slur about his Samoan heritage, but called it unacceptable.
"It's one of those things, I'm pretty competitive and I say a lot of things that I wouldn't want my kids to hear, but that's certainly crossing the line," he said. "It's not something I'd ever say."
"I didn't really take great offense to it, but I think it's one of those things you can't allow on a football field," he added. "I'm sure it's a slur he uses colloquially every day, but when it's directed at another player on the field, you can't get away with that. It's not something I take personally. … I'm proud of my teammates for taking the stand they did."
Replay video shows Boxall and some of his teammates reacting immediately to the comment.
"We had four, five guys around the ball that were definitely in earshot," Boxall said. "You can see the video, see the reaction."
On Tuesday, the Qatar Football Association said it "strongly condemns the unwarranted attention" that Abdurisag, who is Black, received from the incident. It also said the association "remains fully committed to supporting Yusuf at this time," adding that Abdurisag denied using discriminatory language and claimed he was racially abused during the match.
When asked if he had heard from Abdurisag or the Qatar association since then, Boxall said: "I'm sure if you've seen their statement, you wouldn't expect anything, I've moved on and I'm ready to get back to work. We've taken that stand, and now it's out of our control and just let the powers that be sort everything out now."
Loons coach Adrian Heath said Boxall, one of two players remaining from the club's inaugural 2017 season, "just wants to put it to bed now."
"You know what Boxy is like, he just wants to move on," Heath said Friday before his team flew to Utah for Saturday night's game at Real Salt Lake. "It's something that shouldn't have happened. It happened and [the New Zealand team] made their point and it was a valid one. It got the world's press involved and anything that highlights they type of thing is good, the racism and negativity of that.
"It's not just in the game, but society as a whole. It's sad in this day and age we're still talking about this, but that's the way it is."
