Brentford condemn ‘vile' racist abuse aimed at Ivan Toney as Premier League club demand more from social media platforms following repeat offences

Toney, who recently returned from an eight-month ban for breaching betting rules has been subject to online harassment. The club expressed deep frustration and anger over the recurrence of such despicable behaviour and labelled the response from social media companies as "underwhelming".

The Bees put out a statement that read: "We are angered and frustrated to report that Ivan Toney has been subjected to racist abuse on Instagram once more. We have initiated investigations into this vile harassment which we condemn in the strongest terms.

"In general, the response from social media platforms to these ongoing issues has been underwhelming. Their solutions, such as filters to simply hide the abuse may safeguard the players, but miss the mark entirely and do not discourage the offenders. Without real consequences for those responsible, the cycle is doomed to repeat."

An offender was handed a three-year stadium ban last March after he was found guilty of abusing Toney on social media. However, Brentford claim that little has been done to punish the perpetrator.

"Sadly, this isn't the first time Ivan has had to deal with this. A similar incident occurred just four weeks ago, leading us to identify an alleged perpetrator whom we reported to the authorities. To date, we have yet to see any action taken against that individual."

However, the Bees did express their belief that things can improve for players in the future. "We do have faith that things can change. We appreciate the dialogue that we have with the likes of Meta but we call for more decisive and urgent action to combat online hate. We call for prompt investigations, and importantly, we call for criminal prosecutions. We will continue to work with the authorities and the Premier League and to support our players as we tackle this awful online abuse."