TOMHOPKINSON email: tom.hopkinson@reachplc.com Malice Banter A social media legacy

the increasing number of players subjected to it. Last week, the Professional Footballers’ Association revealed that a record 653 of its members had contacted their counselling services in 2019 – an alarming rise, up almost 50 per cent on 2018.

Of those who contacted the PFA, 48 per cent were current players.

That equates to roughly every member of every first-team squad at the top 12 Premier League clubs contacting their union for help with their wellbeing. A staggering number.

The PFA laid the blame for the upturn squarely at the door of social media. Now, everyone is entitled to an opinion and not every opinion is going to be positive.

There’s nothing wrong with criticism either, if someone deserves it, providing it’s constructive and measured Or better still, if, in the case of Stubbs’ bantering binman, it’s laced with mischief, not malice.

But, sadly, old-fashioned terrace witticisms are increasingly a thing of the past.

Everything seems so venomous these days, particularly on social media.

Just because our footballers, by and large, are highly paid does not mean they are immune to mentalhealth difficulties.

And just because we pay to watch them play, it does not give us a divine right to hurl abuse at them from the stands or online.

We need to start asking ourselves two questions before every social media post.

“Would I say this to someone’s face?” And, more importantly, “Is it really worth it?”.

Because if things don’t calm down soon, and the number of mental-health cries for help to the PFA continue to rise, then you worry where it all might end.

IT really doesn’t matter where the measurement for offside begins or ends – as long as video technology is employed to rule on the matter we will be arguing over millimetres and bemoaning the fact the joy is being sucked out of our game.