- Lucy Bronze says
soccer 's passionate yet violent culture allows online abuse towards players thrive. - The
England star also says social media companies must also do more to punish offenders. - "It's sad, really, because we're all human beings," she told Insider.
Soccer's passionate yet violent culture and failure to punish culprits allows online abuse towards players to thrive, says Lucy Bronze, the sport's biggest female star.
England trio Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Buykayo Saka were all subjected to racist abuse online following their team's
The three young players all missed penalties in the shoot-out, resulting in a wave of abuse directed towards them across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
"Go back to Nigeria," commented one user on an Instagram post of Saka's, while another used the N-word. Others posted monkey emojis.
England manager Gareth Southgate called the abuse "unforgivable." Rashford, who had a mural of him in his hometown defaced, said he "will never apologise" for being who he is.
"I'm Marcus Rashford, 23-year-old black man from Withington and Wythenshawe, South Manchester," he wrote on Instagram.
"If I have nothing else I have that. For all the kind messages thank you. I'll be back stronger. We'll be back stronger."
But sadly, racism is just one branch of online hate players suffer
Hate speech is any abusive, threatening, or hateful language and can include a reference to a person's race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
Last year, Kick It Out, English football's equality and inclusion organization, published a shocking report showing a 95% rise in the reports of abuse based on sexual orientation in professional soccer during the 2019/20 season.
Broadcaster Sky Sports also reported a "surge" in "misogynistic posts" last season after expanding its coverage of women's football.
Bronze, who plays for Manchester City and is the reigning Best FIFA Women's Player, has been a victim of both of the latter.
"There was a point a couple of years ago, I just thought I've had enough of this," Bronze told Insider. "For all the good that social media does, it connects people and connects you with fans and supporters all around the world, the positives just weren't enough to outweigh the negatives.
"And it was too much for me. I didn't like dealing with it. I didn't want to read it. So just completely deleted everything."
Though she's since reactivated her social media profiles, Bronze says she still tries to avoid reading comments out of fear of being abused.
"I'm going about my life, I'm writing things that I like doing, whether it's about successes or funny things or family or friends, that's me, that's my life. And I want to share that with people. Why should they get to stop me from doing that?" she said.
"So I think now I'm at the point where I'm on social media, and I enjoy it like I love going and looking at people's Instagrams, seeing what they do and seeing funny videos like it's great like there's so much positivity.
"But I just try to avoid as much reading comments and comments sections and things that I just know is clickbait for all those trolls to come in and have a little feast on certain players.
"I just avoid it because I just don't want to see it."
Bronze says the hate is born from fear
"It's ignorance," the 29-year-told said when asked why she thinks women and minorities are often the targets of online abuse.
"I think people always seem to, I don't know, be afraid of or be threatened by things that they don't associate themselves with, or that's not them.
"It's sad, really, because we're all human beings. We all make different choices. You know, I put on a different pair of trainers than you this morning, but that doesn't make a difference to who we are."
"For example, Marcus Rashford, how has the color of his skin got anything to do with how he kicks a football? And whether he scores or not? It has nothing to do with it."
Bronze also says she believes the problem is particularly pertinent in football as opposed to other
Soccer fans across the globe often have intense ties to the teams they choose to follow, which can spill over into violence and hooliganism.
For example, in England, even despite the coronavirus pandemic, there were 1,089 soccer-related arrests during the 2019/20 season across the country's top four leagues. Most were for either public or violent disorder.
"Football fans are so passionate. I think that's why we love football," said Bronze. "You know, everybody in England, especially like, 'It's coming home' - everyone's going mad for it.
"And sometimes I think that does brim over into abuse. And some people just need to be checked again and realise that their passion has gone a bit too far.
"Players can take criticism about performances, but there's a difference. And we've crossed the line too many times. People just need to understand when they are crossing that line and that it's not okay.
"It is impersonal online. It seems to be a lot easier to do online because the repercussions are like zero to nothing. Or that's what it feels like anyway."
To tackle the pandemic, Bronze has joined Hope United
Created by broadcaster BT, Hope United is a collection of Great Britain's biggest soccer stars who have come together to put a stop to online hate.
Bronze is one of 20 to have joined the fictitious club alongside Gareth Bale, Rebecca Sellar, Jordan Henderson, and Rashford.
She and her fellow athletes are calling for social media companies to introduce accountability by identifying and punishing culprits. The campaign also offers tips as to people can tackle the problem and how they can be better online citizens.
"We are saying we don't want to deal with this anymore," said Bronze. "We don't want to just shrug our shoulders and dust ourselves off and go again. We don't want to be okay with saying, 'Oh, it's fine. It's fine that people write what they want about us.'
"No, it's not fine.
"There's so many angles that we can tackle this issue with. There's obviously the big issue of going to the social media platforms and saying, you know, you need to change your terms and conditions, you need to put in place consequences, and stop people making profile after profile after profile after being blocked.
"I've been in meetings with the government speaking about law changes to push social media, but there's also the education that can be done behind it, teaching people that actually, online abuse is a hate crime."
-BT (@bt_uk) May 28, 2021
She added: "I think, for me personally, it wasn't just about myself but trying to help younger players deal with abuse that they suffer. And that was something that hit me harder. I think it's when it's yourself, you deal with it how you want to deal with it, but when it's somebody else, you feel so helpless.
"I want to try my best I want to do everything that I can to to make a difference, make a change, because seeing young players especially suffering from online abuse is just not ok.
"It's something that we can change, and I think we will be able to change."