Professional football club’s in England will take part in a social media boycott next weekend, it has been announced.
Teams in the Premier League, EFL, FA Women’s Super League, Women’s Championship will all take part in the boycott. They will be joined by the FA, PFA, LMA, PGMOL, Kick It Out and the FSA in the event.
Football Clubs in England to Go Ahead With Planned Social Media Boycott
Why is There a Boycott?
A social media boycott will take place in a bid to call on social media companies to help discriminatory abuse that is regularly received online by players.
Racial abuse online has been highlighted as a huge cause for concern and problem this season. Incidents occur almost on a weekly basis, and now English teams are stepping up their battle against it.
The boycott will take place from Friday, April 30 until 23:59 on Monday, May 3. This is longer than the 24-hour boycott that was speculated recently.
Club’s will be asked to log out and switch off their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter profiles.
It is hoped that the boycott will raise awareness of the seriousness of the issue, as well as call on social media companies to do more to combat abuse online.
‘Appalling Abuse Cannot Be Allowed to Continue’
Ahead of the event next weekend, Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, said: “Racist behaviour of any form is unacceptable and the appalling abuse we are seeing players receive on social media platforms cannot be allowed to continue.
“The Premier League and our clubs stand alongside football in staging this boycott to highlight the urgent need for social media companies to do more in eliminating racial hatred. We will not stop challenging social media companies and want to see significant improvements in their policies and processes to tackle online discriminatory abuse on their platforms.
“Football is a diverse sport, which brings together communities and cultures from all backgrounds and this diversity makes the competition stronger. No Room For Racism represents all the work we do to promote equality, diversity and inclusion and tackling discrimination.”
Trevor Birch, the EFL’s Chief Executive, added: “EFL clubs have expressed a clear desire to take a united stand against abhorrent racist, discriminatory, and threatening abuse on social media platforms which we fully support alongside the rest of the football family.
“While we recognise the value and role social media plays in our game, online abuse will not be tolerated and we will continue to strongly pursue all avenues open to us to affect change.
“The boycott is only part of the work being undertaken in this area but further highlights the need for social media companies to take additional responsibility for the inappropriate and unwelcome behaviour that appears on their platforms.”
