Paul Pogba: Manchester United star among 50 black footballers’ accounts to be monitored by Twitter to tackle racist abuse

The Frenchman was targeted online after his missed penalty against Wolves in the 1-1 draw at Molineux on Monday

Twitter will closely monitor the accounts of 50 leading black players in a bid to tackle racist abuse on social media in light of Paul Pogba and Tammy Abraham being targeted.

The Manchester United and Chelsea players missed penalties for their sides and were quickly inundated with abuse online.

Football has been dissatisfied with Twitter’s policy with players last season boycotting the platform and other forms of social media for 24 hours. And now Twitter have made their first move to step up the battle against racist abuse online, report the Times.

The news comes after England women head coach Phil Neville called on players to stop using social media to send a “powerful message”.

“We have to take drastic measures now as a football community. I’ve had it with my players on social media, the Premier League and the Championship have had it,” said Neville.

“I just wonder whether as a football community we come off social media, because Twitter won’t do anything about it, Instagram won’t do anything about it – they send you an email reply saying they’ll investigate but nothing happens.

“I’ve lost total faith in whoever runs these social media departments, so let’s send a powerful message: come off social media (for) six months. Let’s see the effect it has on these social media companies.”

Paul Pogba sparked a debate surrounding leadership after his penalty miss (Reuters)

Twitter will meet with Manchester United and Kick It Out, looking to share with them “the proactive work they are doing to address online racist abuse towards footballers in the UK”.

“We know we need to do more to protect our users. Racist behaviour has no place on our platform and we strongly condemn it.

“We look forward to working more closely with our partners to develop shared solutions. We will continue to proactively monitor the conversation, and take aggressive enforcement action when content violates our rules.”