English football will boycott next weekend to highlight the "ongoing and sustained discriminatory abuse" suffered by players online. 

Clubs across the Premier League, EFL, WSL and Women’s Championship will switch off their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts from next Friday afternoon until midnight on Sunday.

“Racist behaviour of any form is unacceptable and the appalling abuse we are seeing players receive on social media platforms cannot be allowed to continue.

“The Premier League and our clubs stand alongside football in staging this boycott to highlight the urgent need for social media companies to do more in eliminating racial hatred.

"We will not stop challenging social media companies and want to see significant improvements in their policies and processes to tackle online discriminatory abuse on their platforms.

“Football is a diverse sport, which brings together communities and cultures from all backgrounds and this diversity makes the competition stronger.

"No Room For Racism represents all the work we do to promote equality, diversity and inclusion and tackling discrimination.”

Chief Executive of the EFL, Trevor, Birch, says it was important to put up a united front.

“EFL clubs have expressed a clear desire to take a united stand against abhorrent racist, discriminatory, and threatening abuse on social media platforms which we fully support alongside the rest of the football family.

“While we recognise the value and role social media plays in our game, online abuse will not be tolerated and we will continue to strongly pursue all avenues open to us to affect change.

“The boycott is only part of the work being undertaken in this area but further highlights the need for social media companies to take additional responsibility for the inappropriate and unwelcome behaviour that appears on their platforms.