Newcastle United release statement after £25m star received vile abuse on social media after Crystal Palace win
Every so often, you can forget that we're living in the 21st Century, a supposed civilised time, and it comes when you see stories like this.
After Joe Willock missed a golden opportunity to make it 3-0 against Crystal Palace on Sunday, many fans were rightly furious and baffled by how a professional footballer was able to make such a huge mistake.
But, 99.9999% of us rolled our eyes, swore at the sky and moved on, but one little tramp decided to log on to social media and send a swathe of disgusting, abusive and racist messages to the Newcastle United number 28.
We've made no secret of the fact that we think it's time that Joe Willock was sold, and we have nothing against anyone voicing that opinion or giving us a solid case for why he should stay. That's part of the fun of following football; we all have different opinions, and that's what keeps it interesting. But then there are people like this online cretin.
Newcastle United released a statement on the abuse Joe Willock received
Newcastle United have released a statement condemning the abuse and confirmed that they are working with Northumbria Police who are looking into the matter.
We are disgusted by racist abuse received by Joe Willock on Instagram on Sunday evening.
Following our win over Crystal Palace, Joe received several direct messages from an Instagram account that included racial slurs and deeply disturbing threats of violence towards Joe and his family.
Sadly, Joe has faced this before. Each time, we have acted quickly to support him and that has been our immediate priority again.
We have swiftly reported this matter to the police and we will fully support any investigation to identify the person responsible and hold them accountable, wherever they are.
This can only happen with meaningful action from Meta, Instagram's owners. We urge Meta to give the police all the information they need to identify the perpetrator, and to do so quickly.
Removing content and applying message filters is not enough. Social media companies must do more to protect users and support the prosecution of those who seek to break the law on their platforms.
We stand firmly with Joe and anyone else who faces this kind of abuse.
We just can't get our heads around why anyone would be this sick and twisted over anything in life, let alone football
Willock shared the screenshots of the messages to his personal Instagram, saying that he hopes the individual finds God. We personally hope he finds handcuffs and a stiff sentence. We're not going to share it, we won't give this little amoeba the satisfaction, but it's out there to be seen.
Having seen the messages, nothing that was said can be played off as banter, or 'a bad choice made in the heat of the moment'; it was absolutely vile and from the mind of a sick, twisted individual.
We're absolutely gutted for Joe Willock, and as the club says, this isn't the first time he's had to face something like this. Regardless of what we think of him as a player right now, he is still a person, and by all accounts, a bloody nice one at that, so why someone would stoop this low is truly baffling.
Not that this would justify it in any way, but it's not like he missed an open goal to bag us three points. The game was already won! Other than maybe messing up this goblin's bet, it was entirely inconsequential.
