Wigan contact police over vile racist message sent to Nathan Byrne on Twitter
The Championship club condemn the comment directed towards the 26-year-old after the 2-2 draw with Bristol City
WIGAN have reported the racist abuse suffered by Nathan Byrne to police following the 2-2 Championship thriller with Bristol City.
The 26-year-old struck in stoppage time to claim a point to dent the Robins' play-off hopes.
Byrne, formally of Tottenham and Wolves, received at least one vile direct message on Twitter leading to the Latics reporting the abuse as a hate crime.
: "Wigan Athletic Football Club are angered by racist abuse received on the personal Twitter account of one of our players, Nathan Byrne, on Saturday afternoon.
"We have reported the incident to the police and will work with the relevant authorities to assist them with their investigations.
"There is no place for discrimination in society and social media is not an exception to those rules. We find this behaviour abhorrent."
Having received the hate-filled message, Byrne posted a screen-shot via his Twitter account, and identified the user who has now deleted his account.
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Why do people think this is acceptable, honestly who cares about skin colour!?
Twitter
Conor Banks wrote: "Disgusting this, no place for it in society never mind football. Hope it gets sorted quickly."
Michael Roberts added: "Why do people think this is acceptable, honestly who cares about skin colour!?"
Alan Drummond said: "Genuinely don’t understand what goes through people’s minds to do that."
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The news comes after a Brentford fan was arrested for an alleged "racially aggravated" offence against Derby's Duane Holmes in another second tier fixture on Saturday.
Both episodes follow another damaging week for football, after Juventus striker Moise Kean was subject of monkey chants in the mid-week win over Cagliari.
England trio Raheem Sterling, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Danny Rose were abused in a similar manner during the Euro 2020 qualifier in Montenegro.