London
Manchester City star Kyle Walker has become the latest Premier League player to suffer racist abuse online.
Walker was targeted by social media trolls after helping City beat Tottenham 1-0 in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday.
The 30-year-old posted evidence of the abuse on his Instagram account while expressing his frustration over the lack of protection currently afforded to players online.
Walker received the following message on social media from an account with just three followers after playing the full 90 minutes at Wembley: “Hello you unlucky sole you have fallen victim to one of my racial ratios.”
The user in question went on to deliver a series of racial slurs, as Walker highlighted in his post with the caption: “When is this going to stop?” What steps are being taken to combat racism on social media?
Walker’s message came five days before the beginning of a social media boycott that has been organised by English football authorities in a bid to improve the safety measures on public platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
The men’s and women’s professional game will stage the boycott across a whole weekend of fixtures running from Friday to Monday, with all clubs from the Premier League, EFL, WSL and Women’s Championship set to switch off their online accounts.
English football officials also wrote an open letter to Facebook and Twitter back in February urging the companies to improve their verification process.—APP
