Trolling kids is so disgusting says our Stan

SOCCER pundit and ex-Liverpool star Stan Collymore yesterday said the trolling of the Cisse boys was “disgusting” and “dispiriting”.

He said: “I’m aware, more and more, of families of players being attacked online. It’s 2019 and there’s more racism now than when I was a kid in the 1970s.

“The amount of it going on, from parks to professional football, is dispiriting.

“It’s never, ever right, but to a certain degree players know what’s happening. If they score a goal they half expect a rival team to put something on Twitter. But to target a player’s children? It’s absolutely disgusting.”

Daily Mirror columnist Collymore blamed the rise in abuse on social media’s inability to stamp out racist comments.

He added: “I’ve been on Twitter for 11 years. Originally, if I got a rude or racist message I went to police. On two occasions two men who had targeted me got community orders.

REVIEW

“Now that doesn’t seem to happen as much. You have a whole generation of youngsters who don’t really care what they put online because there’s no deterrent.”

He urged the FA to carry out a “complete root-and-branch review” to stamp out racism in the sport at all levels.

And he warned it is only a matter of time before a top team walks off in protest against racial abuse – as happened in a recent amateur game in Cheshire, where Jude Cisse and her sons live.

Collymore went on: “It will happen soon that a major team does walk off.

“And if that team is England, with six or so BAME players,

Harry Kane as captain and Gareth Southgate OBE as manager, and they are backed up by the FA, there is absolutely no way that FIFA or UEFA, even with their ineptitude, are going to say, ‘We will fine the English FA £20,000’.

“It would go up like a rocket in terms of bad publicity. We need to keep shedding even more of a spotlight on incidents like these.”