The ongoing issue of professional soccer players dealing with racist abuse online had another chapter added this past weekend when Manchester United striker Anthony Martial was subjected to yet more vitriol through social media.
The French attacker was targeted as recently as last month, with the latest incident coming of the back of the Red Devils 1-1 stalemate with West Bromwich Albion on Sunday.
Martial’s Instagram page was targeted by online abusers who left messages on a 16-week-old post.
Instagram have stated that that they intend to implement new measures to prevent online abuse in light of the most recent attacks.
Speaking on last weekend’s On The Ball, the former League Of Ireland referee Alan Kelly said that he had received some abuse online due to decisions he had made on the field.
“Can social media companies do more to combat this? I think the simple answer to that is yes.
“I’ve read lots recently in relation to what social media companies can do”
“I think that’s an easy one – well maybe not an easy one – but it depends on whether the appetite is there from those companies to improve their platforms and protocols and structures.”
“There is certainly the opportunity to do that”
Aside from social media companies, attention has also turned to the clubs whose fans are involved with such behaviour and whether or not the clubs can do more to penalise supporters who abuse players online. Kelly thinks that clubs have dealt with something similar before. So there is precedent to make a change.
“If you go back to the heady days of football hooliganism and the introduction of CCTV.”
“That put the responsibility and the onus on clubs to weed out those individuals within their fan base.”
“I think that was a really positive step and that changed that dynamic”
“So maybe, from a clubs point of view there’s a responsibility there and there’s something that can be done there”
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3cBKvqNHE13Y2AFTpGpJUP?si=mUsLa1loSROcegWoT1jPGw
