There are two statements that appeared on my feed recently that sum up a depressingly, growing number of our fan base at the moment.
Anonymous (supposed Arsenal fan) on Twitter:
‘When you play well you get zero abuse. They deserve everything they get and more”
Granit Xhaka:
“I’m the guy on the pitch, not my wife, not my little girl, not my family. If you want to criticise me, criticise me. The abusive people are not supporters of MY club.”
We all know this isn’t just a football or Arsenal issue, but it seems more emotive and vicious when the passion of ‘so-called supporters’ are involved.
Bernd Leno recently revealed that when he was playing in Germany, he was told, by a troll, to ‘Do an Enke’, referring to fellow countryman Robert Enke, who took his own life after battling with depression.
As someone who suffers from bouts of depression and anxiety, I don’t comprehend how high profile players deal with it. But ultimately, they shouldn’t have to.
They play a sport to entertain and yes, sometimes they have a shocker and yes, we as fans get frustrated and angry, but, what the hell gives anyone the right to threaten a player’s wife and kids or mentally abuse someone with suicide recommendations.
If you had a bad day at work and lost a big contract and the shareholders sent you messages saying they were going to rape your wife and murder you in your sleep, you’d be onto the police ASAP.
Grow up, take a long hard look at your self and in the words of Heath Ledger:
“Why so serious?”
Free speech is a right, but not a right to hate.
English by birth, Australian by choice. Traffic Engineer, Arsenal ST Holder, Sun DreamTeam Winner, Writer on @GunnersTown, Depeche Mode, Welcome to my world…
I know that it’s a generational thing and all that jazz but why go on a social media platform and open yourself up to all that kind of abuse when you don’t need to?
Also, the social media platforms are very quick to cancel people when it suits them but at the same time have a very casual attitude to this kind of abuse, maybe these multi billion companies need to accept their responsibilities to actually police their products more assiduously.