‘We aim to lower abuse’

SOCIAL media trolls who hurl racist abuse at footballers will be left with no hiding place under a revolutionary high-tech initiative that strips away their anonymity.

The technology, hailed by anti-racism groups as a game-changer in the fight against discrimination, could be rolled out as early as next season, naming and shaming scores of perpetrators who use anonymous accounts on Twitter and Instagram to fire racist and homophobic insults at BAME players.

Around a third of Premier League clubs have already been contacted about signing up to the project, named Threat Matrix and developed by London digital technology group Signify which helped tackle anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and are now taking their sophisticated software into the sports market. A plethora of players, including Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham and Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling, have been targeted by anonymous online abuse. Now, as a result of Signify’s technology which can uncover the identities of abusers without breaking privacy laws, culprits could be called out.

The company is offering clubs a £5,000-amonth service, and chief-executive Jonathan Hirshler, who co-founded it with former journalist Jonathan Sebire, said: ‘A number of clubs have shown huge interest and we’re looking to get something up and running for next season. We are also in advanced talks with FIFA over running a pilot study to cover international football.’

‘In the long-term, we hope we can help lower the amount of online abuse.’