The manager of Arsenal football club, Mikel Arteta has revealed that someone threatened to ‘touch’ his family via social media. He stressed that everyone in the business of football is exposed to death threats.
In recent times, footballers, coaches, and referees have been subject to different forms of abuse via social media. Most of the players are being abused racially while others are receiving death threats.
Referee Mike Dean recently received death threats due to poor judgments he made in two football games. Due to the threats, he decided to step down from officiating this weekend’s Premier League games.
Due to the rising cases of online abuses and death threats footballers, coaches and referee have been faced with, The Premier League, FA, EFL, Women’s Championship, PFA, and a host of other groups co-signed an open letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
In the open letter, the group demanded that immediate action should be taken against numerous incidents of abuse aimed at footballers and officials.
In reaction to the open-letter, Facebook-owned Instagram and Twitter have agreed to come up with stringent measures to tackle the menace of online abuse and death threats made via social media.
When Arsenal’s coach Mikel Arteta was brought into the discussion of the abuses and the death threats people in the football industry are being faced with, the Spanish coach said he and his family have been victims of death threats.
Though he didn’t make it public when it happened, Arteta disclosed that Arsenal are aware that his family was threatened. He added that though Arsenal tried to do something about it, yet, it is a practice that might not stop anytime soon.
In an interview he granted today, February 12 ahead of Arsenal’s league match against Leeds United scheduled for Sunday at 17:30, Mikel Arteta said he does not like to talk about the death threats targeted at him and his family.
“We are all exposed in this industry”, the coach noted. “It would affect me a lot more the moment someone wants to touch my family because it happened. The club was aware of it and tried to do something about it.
“It’s not going to stop tomorrow, we know that we want to do something medium or long term.
It’s part of the job, I am not the only one suffering this type of thing.
“When you are winning it is beautiful, you are incredible and you are the best coach. When you lose it is the opposite, it’s not pleasant.
“When it is personal against me I can take it, but when it is my family involved it is a different story.
“The club is very supportive, we do what we have to when those things happen. Medium, long term, can we do something about it? We need to protect people in the game.”
Mikel Arteta revealed in his press conference today that his family have received threats this season. Naturally it's not something he wanted to discuss at length.
— James Benge (@jamesbenge) February 12, 2021
"The club were aware of it, we tried to do something about it… We have to live with it. It won’t stop tomorrow.”
