The English football authorities have come together to send an open letter to those leading social media platforms. A letter published this morning has seen the Football Association, English Football League, Premier League, Women's Professional Game, League Managers' Association, Professional Footballers' Association, Kick It Out and Professional Game Match Officials Limited write to Facebook and Twitter. The letter calls for action to be taken about the "vicious, offensive abuse" being directed to players and match officials.

The letter has been sent directly to Jack Dorsey, the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, and Mark Zuckerberg, the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Facebook. There are calls for protection for all users of the platforms and filters on messages. There is a request for meetings to discuss the abuse on these platforms.

The letter states: "Recent weeks have seen the levels of vicious, offensive abuse from users of your services aimed at footballers and match officials rise even further, we write to ask that for reasons of basic human decency you use the power of your global systems to bring this to an end. The language used is debasing, often threatening and illegal. It causes distress to the recipients and the vast majority of people who abhor racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind. Many footballers in English football receive illegal abuse from accounts all over the world and your companies have the power to bring this to an end."

Brentford FC fully endorses this letter from the football authorities. In a statement last week we backed the quest to rid football of discriminatory behaviour. We will offer all support to the authorities to make social media platforms safe for all. See our statement here.