Rangers social media boycott: 'We are one, when you hurt one of our players you hurt all of us'

Steven Gerrard insists Rangers have a united front when it comes to standing up to a rising tide of vile abuse aimed at players through social media.

Rangers Manager Steven Gerrard with Glen Kamara. Picture: SNS Group Craig Foy

Players and staff at Ibrox announced their collective withdrawal from all online platforms on Thursday, in protest at what the club called “levels of hate spiralling out of control” and daily racist messages directed at players.

Glen Kamara and Kemar Roofe are among those to suffer the abuse and the Rangers manager says the club’s week-long stance may not end there.

"Glen has been the focus of a lot of this, so has Kemar Roofe. Swansea and Birmingham have had similar situations and it was something that came onto the agenda when I was speaking to the senior players and the board.

"It's very personal abuse – when you hurt one of our players you hurt all of us because we are one here at Rangers,” Gerrard said.

The manager himself has a following in excess of 9m on Instagram and says the action taken by the players may no,t drive change but will raise awareness, and implored governing bodies to act even if the companies don’t.

“It's not going to make a big massive change but what it does is it keeps the likes of you and I and all others talking about the situation and keeps it in the forefront of people's thinking.

“This will only get changed once the people and the powers that be do something to change it, ie governments, UEFA or the SFA – people who are in the powerful positions to make change in football.

“It's obvious the social media platforms are not listening. This has been on radio stations and TV outlets for weeks and months now. Instagram are not listening, Twitter are not listening, Facebook are not listening because people can just set up false accounts and and do what they ever they want to do and then cancel them and get away with it.

"I support the senior players and all my players in taking a stand for a week and from there we will decide what we do next.”

Rangers players have already ceased ‘taking the knee’ before games following an alleged on-field racist incident Kamara suffered last month which is now subject of a UEFA investigation.

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