Not trivialising the amount or the seriousity of it, just the impact on how good of a footballer he became. And no, not waiting to hear what he got to say about it. Remember when he said he was visiting his sick grandma, but in reality got a flight over to the US just to party? That screams...
While its quite possible he encountered some racism, I think him failing as a player probably was caused by himself. Always getting compared with his brother probably resulted in him getting complacent and believing he could just shrug his shoulders to the top.