At the end of last week the bookmaker Paddy Power published a tweet which contrasted the £10,000 fine given by the Football Association to Millwall in August for their fans’ racist chanting with the £50,000 fine imposed on Huddersfield Town for wearing an oversized sponsor’s logo on their kit in a pre-season friendly. I retweeted it, suggesting that Millwall’s minuscule fine would make no impact on the behaviour of fans at a club already synonymous with racism.
What followed was a barrage of personal abuse from Millwall fans, some insisting I was unfair to suggest they all behaved as unpleasantly as the club’s stereotype would suggest, and others absolutely reinforcing that stereotype. My tweets are now protected to avoid further abuse, which means people can’t see or reply to my tweets unless I have approved their request to follow me; within hours I had about 100 follow requests from people identifying as Millwall fans, who expected me to give them the approval they needed to send me their abuse. For these people it was not enough to write abusive comments about me, they wanted to make sure I saw the abuse – and they expected me to volunteer for it.
Written by Eni Aluko
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/sep/12/legal-action-players-next-step-online-abuse under the title “Legal action by players should be the next step for online abuse | Eni Aluko”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
