Man City release statement after Kyle Walker reveals vile racist abuse

Manchester City have released a statement condemning the racist abuse Kyle Walker has suffered following Wednesday's 2-0 Champions League defeat to Juventus, with the player himself sharing a discriminatory message he was sent on social media.

Walker decided to publish the message he received on his social media accounts on Thursday. He called on Instagram and other authoritative bodies to do more to prevent such hateful messages being sent.

Underneath a screenshot of the message, in which he had hidden the name and user handle of the account, Walker wrote: "No-one should ever be subject to the sort of vile, racist and threatening abuse I have received online since last night's match.

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"@instagram and the authorities need to stop this happening for the sake of all who are suffering this abuse. It is never acceptable. To our fans, we will continue to work as a team to do better, to improve, and to turn the corner together."

Man City also released a statement, outlining that the club was offering support to Walker. It said: "Manchester City strongly condemns the racist abuse that Kyle Walker was subject to online following last night’s fixture.

"We refuse to tolerate discrimination of any kind, regardless of whether that be in stadiums or online. We will be offering Kyle our full support following the disgusting treatment he has received."

Walker's agent, Mark Rankine, has also condemned the behaviour. A spokesperson from Meta - the tech company behind Facebook and Instagram, among others - said: “No one should be subjected to racist abuse, and sending messages like this is against our rules.

"DMs [direct messages] are a private messaging service, which means we can’t review or take action on a message unless the person who received the abusive DM reports it to us in-app.

"We are in touch with Kyle Walker and his team who have now reported this content and we will be taking appropriate action. No one thing will stop this behaviour overnight, but we’ll work to help protect our community from abuse, and support police investigations.”

Scores of fans of Man City and other clubs have shown their support for Walker and condemned the unacceptable abuse he has received.

The right-back has won six Premier League titles and a Champions League among his 17 trophies for Man City. He has made 315 appearances for the Blues and earned 93 England caps during his career.