Newcastle’s Willock considers quitting social media over daily racist abuse
Newcastle midfield Joe Willock has revealed that he receives racist abuse daily and has considered quitting social media due to that.
The 21-year-old, who completed a move to Newcastle from Arsenal on a six-year deal last week, says social media sites need to step up to tackle the problem of racial abuse which has seen several black footballers targeted with abuse across various platforms.
“Every day I get messages,” Willock said. “Messages saying about my colour or different things that are disgusting, really.
“There’s not much you can do – you just have to try and ignore it. I don’t think Instagram, Facebook and Twitter have put up enough of a fight for us to do anything else.
“I feel like the only thing you can do in this day and age is just ignore it and try to put it at the back of your head.
“It comes up on your phone and they have a way of direct messaging you on to your phone these disgusting things and it sort of hurts. It hurts a lot – even speaking about it.”
The Englishman scored eight goals for Newcastle while on loan at the club in the second half of last season.