AXEL TUANZEBE

Racist abuse. And social media accounts allowed to stay active even after spreading bile. English football has reached breaking point with players, coaches, referees and officials aghast at the ongoing proliferation of hate aimed at them on Instagram and Twitter. This is being enforced almost two years after players in England boycotted social media for 24 hours. The government is also introducing legislation — the online safety bill — that could see social media companies fined for failing to protect their users.

The leaders of English soccer have asked the heads of Facebook and Instagram to show basic human decency by taking more robust action to eradicate racism and for users identities to be verified. There has been growing outrage that players from the Premier League to the Womens Super League have been targeted with abuse on Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram. “The language used is debasing, often threatening and illegal,” the eight English soccer leaders, including from the Football Association and Premier League, wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg. The letter was signed by the CEOs of the English Football Association (Mark Bullingham), Premier League (Richard Masters), English Football League (Trevor Birch), Professional Footballers’ Association (Gordon Taylor) and League Managers’ Association (Richard Bevan). Threats of violence on social media have also alarmed English soccer this week.

Arteta had billed the coming week, starting with the visit of Chelsea, as a “crucial” period that would determine which direction Arsenal was heading this season. A first league victory in nearly two months was vital, therefore, to boost Arsenal players' fragile confidence — even if it only lifted them into 14th place. “It's something to build on.”It took 90 minutes for the scrutiny that was hovering over Arteta to drift toward his Chelsea counterpart, Frank Lampard. That's three losses in the last four league games for Chelsea, which has dropped to seventh place and whose identity — and best lineup — is increasingly hard to decipher. The result kept Leicester above United in the standings after they started the day in second and third place.