BURTON Albion FC will be supporting the national football boycott of social media platforms this weekend and is urging fans to do the same.
THE FA, Premier League, EFL, FA Women’s Super League, FA Women’s Championship, PFA, LMA, PGMOL, Kick It Out and the FSA will unite for a social media boycott from 3pm on Friday to 11.59pm on Monday.
The boycott is in protest at the sustained discriminatory abuse received online by players and many others connected to football.
Burton Albion will switch of the club’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts during this period and we are asking fans to join us by doing the same.
We will be enhancing our coverage of Saturday’s home game against Gillingham on the official club website and will be opening a live blog so fans can interact with us on match day.
Chairman Ben Robinson said: “We are uniting with the rest of the football family to send a powerful message to the social media companies that it’s beyond time for them to act and deal with the abuse that is spread on their platforms.
“Our manager and first team were subjected to intolerable abuse at a game this season prompting us to protest to the EFL and police, so we know that no individual or club is immune.
“We urge our fans to join us by not using their social media accounts during this period as the more people who join the boycott the more powerful the message will be.
“We know you enjoy the engagement on social media on a matchday but we need this to be safe space for everyone to enjoy not a toxic environment, so we hope all our fans will use this weekend to interact with us in a different way.
“Before you go quiet on social media, please share the club’s messages that will go out on before the boycott starts explaining why.”
Read the EFL Statement on the social media boycott HERE
HOW TO FOLLOW SATURDAY'S GAME
Just because we aren’t using social media doesn’t mean that we aren’t bringing you live coverage of the game:
Ways to follow the Brewers v Gillingham
- Buy an iFollow Brewers Match pass for £10 and stream the game live;
- Follow the Match Centre on the club website with live text commentary, constantly updating statistics and scores from the other League One games;
- Buy an audio only pass and listen to commentary on the game;
- Use the EFL app on your phone for live updates throughout the game;
- Send comments to our interactive blog (more details on match day)
- Listen to BBC Radio Derby who will be covering the game live
- Come back to the website post-game for a gallery of pictures, match report, manager’s verdict and video interviews.