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Professional athletes are subjected to a ton of harassment on social media, and while most people would tell you the best way to handle that abuse is to ignore it, Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk wasn’t able to bite his tongue after an angry fan slid into his DMs.
Mudryk spent a few years making quite a name for himself while playing for Shakhtar Donetsk in his native Ukraine, and at the start of 2023, Chelsea decided he was worth the €70 million transfer fee it forked over to earn the right to sign him to an eight-year contract worth £44,200,000 (around $55 million) at the age of 22.
Fans of the club obviously had some pretty high hopes for a guy who was expected to give the team’s offense a significant boost, but it’s safe to say that has not been the case.
Mudryk appeared in 15 games for Chelsea during his inaugural season in the Premier League and failed to score a single goal by the time it wrapped up.
He has been able to put the ball in the net on three occasions over the course of the 19 games he’s played in his second campaign, but he’s disappointed fans who are obviously not happy with a squad that’s currently sporting a losing record and sitting 20 points behind first-place Liverpool.
One of those supporters decided to hop on Instagram to voice their displeasure by sending Mudryk a DM and subsequently received a response from the player, who challenged him to a one-on-one showdown with £10,000 (around $12,500) on the line.
🚨🚨| Mudryk challenged a Chelsea fan to a £10k 1v1 after the fan expressed dissatisfaction with his performances. pic.twitter.com/ok3LovMQvj
— CentreGoals. (@centregoals) February 4, 2024
I can’t necessarily blame Mudryk for failing to exercise some self-restraint after reading what I assume is just one of the many negative messages he’d received thanks to what’s transpired during his time with Chelsea, and while it would be pretty funny to see him (presumably) destroy an Average Joe on the pitch, this isn’t exactly the best look.