Rabbi Matondo: Racist abuse social media accounts removed
- Published
Rabbi Matondo is playing at Stoke on loan from German side Schalke
Facebook has removed Instagram accounts that sent racist abuse to Stoke City's Wales winger Rabbi Matondo.
The abuse aimed at the 20-year-old came after a three-day boycott of social media by many leading sports clubs and players over the issue of online abuse.
It is the second time in 2021 that Matondo has received such abuse.
In March he and Swansea defender Ben Cabango were targeted while on Wales international duty, while Swansea's Yan Dhanda was also abused.
Both matters resulted in an investigation by South Wales Police (SWP).#
A Stoke City spokesperson said: "The club is aware of the disgusting racial abuse Rabbi Matondo received on social media overnight and will do everything we can to help the authorities bring the perpetrator to justice.
"We will not tolerate behaviour of this nature - there is no place in society for it and we will be reporting the offending post in line with the agreed procedure the EFL (English Football League) has in place."
Last weekend, Swansea forward Morgan Whittaker was also a target of online racism, again prompting a complaint to SWP.
A spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, said: "The abuse sent to Rabbi Matondo is unacceptable. We do not want it on Instagram and we quickly removed the accounts that sent it.
"We recently announced that we'll take tougher action against people breaking our rules in DMs and later this week we're rolling out new tools to help prevent people seeing abusive messages from strangers.
"No single thing will fix this challenge overnight but we're committed to doing what we can to keep our community safe from abuse."
Wales boss Robert Page says it was right for the Football Association and Wales' leading players to join the social media boycott.
"It was the right thing to do. That isn't going to solve it - you're still going to get idiots out there who think it's okay to do that.
"What we're doing by taking the knee is raising awareness to the people out there who are abusing players and saying it's not acceptable.
"By doing the boycott, it was making the owners of these platforms stand up and take notice and make our voices heard here. And that's what it is, we're not going to get rid of them straight away.
"We've been in contact with Rabbi straight away, like I was with him in the previous camp with Ben Cabango. We're dealing with it and we're there to support him fully."