To protest against racism, the English teams will close their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts at the end of next week.
The English clubs will set up a total blackout on social networks for three days next weekend in order to protest against the racist insults to which their players are victims on these platforms, their governing bodies announced on Saturday evening.
This boycott, which will affect the English Federation, Premier League, Second Division and Women’s Super League clubs, will begin on Friday April 30 at 4 p.m. and end on Tuesday May 3 at 12.59 a.m.
“This action has been scheduled to take place across the entire male and female professional football fixture list” and will see all English football representative bodies “close their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.” It comes “in response to the continued and sustained discriminatory abuse received online by players and many other football-related people,” English football officials said in a joint statement.
“The appalling abuse of players on social media cannot continue.”
“Racist behavior is unacceptable, and the appalling abuse of players on social media cannot continue,” Premier League CEO Richard Masters said. It is urgent that these companies do more to eradicate racial hatred online. ”
This decision follows one already implemented by the Scottish Rangers club and the English Football League clubs of Birmingham and Swansea, whose players Yan Dhanda, Ben Cabango and Jamal Lowe were recently victims of racist insults in line.
Since the start of the year, several players of color wearing Manchester United shirts such as Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, as well as Reece James of Chelsea, have also been targeted on social media.
On February 11, in an open letter to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, English football officials called for action “for reasons of simple human decency.”
Twitter replied that it did not intend to censor comments from anonymous accounts.
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