CNN
—
English Premier League club Brentford have released a statement condemning the ‘racist and disgusting abuse’ their striker Ivan Toney says he received on social media after scoring two goals in his side’s 2-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion on Friday.
“I wasn’t even going to post this but woke up angry…” Toney wrote on Twitter Saturday morning, alongside screenshots of an Instagram direct message using abusive language.
In his statement, Brentford condemned “this discriminatory behavior in the strongest possible terms.
“An attack on one of our players is an attack on all of us. Ivan will receive the full support of the Club and the Brentford fans who we have already seen condemn the abuse.
“We expect strong support from the police, the judiciary and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, to ensure the individual involved faces the full force of the law for this despicable hate crime.”
“No one should receive racist messages like this,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement to CNN. “We have sent a message to the victim asking him to contact the police.”
A spokesperson for Meta said in a statement to CNN that “no one should have to experience racist abuse, and posting messages like this is completely against our rules.
“DMs are private spaces, which means we can’t take action unless someone reports the message to us in the app – but we also want to help protect people from having to see this abuse in first place.
“That’s why we’ve developed our wordsearch feature which filters out offensive comments and DMs, and we’re working closely with football governing bodies to help players activate these tools. Nothing will fix this overnight. , but we will continue to work to help protect our community from abuse and respond quickly to valid legal requests to support police investigations.
Before kick-off, Brentford and Brighton players took a knee to ‘show their unity against all forms of racism’, as all Premier League players do between October 8 and October 16 to underline the league’s No Room For Racism campaign.
The Premier League has also released its own statement on Twitter, condemning “all forms of discrimination”.
“No one should have to face abuse of the kind suffered by Ivan Toney,” the statement read. “It has no place in football or in society. We support Ivan and the club with investigations. Football is for everyone #NoRoomForRacism.
“The #PL will continue to support players and work with clubs to address discriminatory behavior,” the league added in a threaded tweet.
In May, British police said they were investigating allegations of racist abuse by Toney and the families of team-mate Rico Henry during Brentford’s game against Everton at Liverpool.
Toney and Henry tweeted the allegations against unidentified supporters after the game at Goodison Park.
“And for the man who racially abused my family, he [sic] do everything I can to get you the punishment you deserve,” Toney wrote at the time.
