Kyle Walker reveals racist abuse after Man City’s Carabao Cup final victory
England international shared an abusive direct message on his Instagram story
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Your support makes all the difference.Kyle Walker has revealed a racist message sent to the Manchester City defender following his team’s Carabao Cup final victory over Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
Aymeric Laporte’s late header sealed a 1-0 win for City at Wembley, ensuring they lifted the Carabao Cup trophy for a fourth straight season.
On Sunday evening, England international Walker – who started alongside Laporte in defence against his former club – posted an Instagram story containing a screenshot of an abusive direct message from a user, alongside the caption: “When is this going to stop?!”
Walker, 30, blurred out the user’s account name.
The message, which seemed to have been sent after City’s win at Wembley, contained numerous racial slurs.
Following a spate of incidents involving racist abuse aimed at footballers in England in recent months, English football last week announced a collective effort to boycott social media over four days.
The FA, Premier League, EFL, FA Women’s Super League, FA Women’s Championship, PFA, LMA, PGMOL, Kick It Out, Women in Football and the FSA have united and will avoid using social media from 15:00 BST on 30 April to 23:59 on 3 May.
Official accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram will go quiet across a full round of fixtures for the men’s and women’s professional game.
The joint-effort is designed to provoke more change from social media companies, with further calls to provide filtering, blocking and swift takedowns of offensive posts, an improved verification process and re-registration prevention, plus active assistance for law enforcement agencies to identify and prosecute originators of illegal content.
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