Brentford striker Ivan Toney receives more online abuse

Brentford striker Ivan Toney has been on the receiving end of further abuse online just hours after his club said they were reporting an Instagram user for directing racist language towards him.

The club said they had contacted the social media company over the initial post, which had then banned the user from its platform, and have also reported the matter to the police.

But in replies to the club statement on Twitter, one user said Toney’s raised fist salute before matches in support of the Black Lives Matter movement was “ignorant”, “attention-seeking” and “pathetic”.

Toney quote-tweeted the account, replying: “Wait, what?”

Brentford said they had seen the latest post, and had reported it to Twitter.

Toney is being supported by the club’s player welfare department in relation to the earlier Instagram post, and the Bees added in a statement: “Any steps that Ivan wants to take against the perpetrator will have our full support and we will work with Instagram and the police to try and identify the individual involved, taking action against them if possible.

“It is often difficult to identify the perpetrators, but we hope that with the assistance of social media platforms this will change over time.”

Brentford banned two season-ticket holders for breaches of their social media policy on Christmas Eve.

The club’s policy is not to name such individuals, but a joint PA news agency and Times investigation found one of them was James Stacey, whose firm JS Electricals is based in Shepperton in Surrey and is registered on the NAPIT site.

Another individual, Steven Green, was banned for using highly offensive racist language in a video posted on social media in September last year.

PA has learned Green is in a relationship with a club employee and had been employed by the club last summer on their Farewell to Griffin Park tours despite a previous banning order and conviction for affray.

Green pleaded guilty to a charge of racially-aggravated harassment on January 4 at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court.