A man has been found guilty and prosecuted for racist social media post towards then Latics striker Ivan Toney in December 2017.
Wigan Athletic have been informed that a man has been prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service for a Racially Aggravated Section 4a Public Order Offence, in relation to a social media post sent to Ivan Toney during his loan spell with the club this season.
The defendant, Calvin White, 25, of Hollycarrside Road, Sunderland, pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment and was sentenced to a community order of 12 months, 120 hours of unpaid work, and ordered to pay £170 costs.
The club immediately notified Twitter and Greater Manchester Police after seeing the post in December 2017 and have been fully cooperative in helping the authorities identify the person responsible for the tweet.
We would also like to thank Northumbria Police for their support in identifying the individual responsible for the social media post.
Wigan Athletic promote equality and diversity and were awarded the Premier League Equality Standard Intermediate Level in October 2017.
Kick It Out released the following statement: “We applaud Wigan Athletic for notifying both Twitter and the police. Discriminatory abuse is no less unacceptable when it is carried out on social media, and this shows that however and wherever this occurs there is no hiding place.
“However, it also proves that there is still a lot of work to be done in and around the game to tackle discrimination and educate offenders.”
We thank supporters for their assistance in tackling racist language in our social community and encourage any supporters who witness any form of discriminatory behaviour to text our Together line, starting the message with WIGAN to 80800, providing further details. Alternatively, Kick It Out have a reporting app, providing users with the ability to attach video, photo and audio evidence to complaints to help support investigations into discriminatory abuse and behaviour across football.