Henderson joins fightback against cyber bullies

Jordan Henderson handed full control of his social media accounts to anti-cyber abuse campaigners as he joined protests within football over failures to stop online racism.

The Liverpool captain stopped short of deleting his accounts altogether as “I’m not quite sure who that helps”, but he said urgent action was needed over “out of control” levels of abuse.

A boycott of Facebook and Twitter is gathering pace, with Swansea and Birmingham the first clubs to switch off all platforms in disgust at the inability of social media platforms to tackle trolls. The Championship sides will spurn the platforms for a week in solidarity with Thierry Henry’s announcement last month that he was quitting social media until firm action was taken with “vigour and ferocity”. Glasgow Rangers joined the boycott last night.

The Football Association’s Lionesses Twitter account also called for social media companies to “step it up” following a racist attack on England footballer Rinsola Babajide.

Henderson released a statement on his social media channels attacking “horrendous” abuse faced by “friends, team-mates, other players within football and in wider society”. He cited attacks this week on

Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-arnold and Naby Keita, who received racist emojis in replies on Instagram following the club’s Champions League defeat by Real Madrid. “I don’t really see much changing,” Henderson, 30, said. “Again, some of my team-mates were racially abused online after a football match and to me that’s just unacceptable.”

Henderson has turned to Cybersmile, a foundation that “educate, support and advise people” who suffer social media abuse or online bullying. “I’ll be partnering with them to have full control of all of my social media channels, to promote how they help people,” he added. The charity will publish support links on his sites.|