BEVERLY HILLS, March 28, (THEWILL) – The coach of the Three Lions of England, Gareth Southgate suggested that English football players should emulate French football icon and Arsenal football club great Thierry Henry, who recently made up his mind to completely boycott social media.
Recently, Henry deleted his social media accounts as a protest against what he considered to be reluctance on the part of these online platforms in taking remedial actions against anonymous account holders who propagate racist and bullying tendencies without consequences.
The England boss sided with Henry for cutting off social media but confirmed that he would not stop his players from using those platforms during the European Championship in June, as it is their prerogative.
He believes they can make up their minds of they want to: “I think it’s something for all players, and all high-profile people who may receive that kind of negative attention, to think about. It’s not just high-profiled people, there’ll be young kids who are getting bullied online.
“It’s something for everyone to think about: do you want to put yourself in that situation? If you spoke to every manager in the country, one of their biggest concerns would be that the players go in the dressing room and are scrolling through their phones and it’s a vulnerable moment for people if they’ve just played a game.
“They’re tired and fatigued. What voices are they listening to?”
The 43-year-old manager said he quit social media in 2013 when he became the England Under-21 manager: “When I’m in camp, I try to switch off from all the external media, which is not great for keeping up with what’s going on in the world. But the world is a happier place if I’m not getting that negativity.”
As the situation of online abuse encouraged by the anonymity platforms provide worsened, English football’s governing bodies came out to call Twitter, Facebook and Instagram “havens for abuse” last month and urged their parent companies to tackle the problem in the wake of fresh racist messages aimed at players in the country.
Although Instagram has announced a series of measures to tackle online abuse, and Twitter, who took action on more than 700 cases of “abuse and hateful conduct” related to football in Britain in 2019, promised to continue its efforts to curb the problem, these efforts are not making any concrete difference to tackle the hideous nature of the problem and the effects it can have on victims.
Henry, who has a huge social media presence with 2.7 million people following him on Instagram and 2.3m on Twitter, while his official Facebook page has 10m followers, posted his decision to shut out social media in a statement he posted across his different accounts in which he said:
“From tomorrow [Saturday] morning I will be removing myself from social media until the people in power are able to regulate their platforms with the same vigour and ferocity that they currently do when you infringe copyright.
“The sheer volume of racism, bullying and resulting mental torture to individuals is too toxic to ignore. There has to be some accountability. It is far too easy to create an account, use it to bully and harass without consequence and still remain anonymous.
“Until this changes, I will be disabling my accounts across all social platforms. I’m hoping this happens soon.”
In the growing list of targeted victims of racist comments Marcus Rashford, Fred, Jude Bellingham, Antonio Rudiger and Reece James are just some of the players to have been abused on social media in recent months.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
