The Football Association of Ireland condemns the latest social media threats aimed at senior Irish international team player James McClean and offers James and his family our full support at this difficult time.
The Association has reached out to James in light of this most recent incident and assured him that the FAI will assist him in any way it can.
FAI CEO Jonathan Hill said: “The FAI remains committed to safeguarding all of our players against any form of abuse on any social media platform. To abuse or threaten James or any player because of his nationality should not be tolerated by society. Unfortunately, such behaviour is all too common now on social media.
“Only last week we commended the stance taken by English football against the abuse of footballers across all social media channels and we are examining how best we can take a similar stance.”
Under the leadership of Intercultural Programme National Co-ordinator Des Tomlinson, the FAI is currently working on new Racism and Discrimination policies which will be presented to Board in the coming weeks.
“The latest incident involving James and his family highlights how important this work is and why football needs to take action,” commented Des Tomlinson. “In recent times many of our players have been victims of social media abuse, hate speech and threats including Jonathan Afolabi, Cyrus Christie and James. It is not acceptable and I will assure James of our full support as he deals with this.”
