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Erin McClean on abuse | 'We cannot accept threats to our children's lives'

Erin McClean - wife of Ireland footballer James - has made an impassioned plea about online abuse...



Erin McClean on abuse | 'We ca...
Soccer

Erin McClean on abuse | 'We cannot accept threats to our children's lives'

Erin McClean - wife of Ireland footballer James - has made an impassioned plea about online abuse, saying that threats have been made to her family.

In a message that shows the extent of the personal abuse suffered by the McClean family, she says that companies need to do more to support her in 'daily' abuse and threats.

"I've always kept relatively quiet about the abuse that James, myself and the family receive because I don't like giving people the platform and it has become part of our daily lives for the last nine years," McClean wrote on Twitter.

"There isn't a day that goes by that either one of us don't receive a message of some sort, whether it be a threat, or else telling us to get the f*ck out of England. And to be honest, it's gotten to the point now where it doesn't affect us one bit, and hasn't for a long time!

"However, we have three very young children who are now at an age where they know and understand these things being said. Of course, we have tried as hard as possible to keep them away from it all but there has been times when we are out shopping and there is people making remarks towards James in front of the kids.

"We can take the name-calling and the rest but what we cannot accept is threatening our family home and our children's lives. They don't deserve this. Why, after nine years of constant abuse, should we be OK and have to accept receiving these threats constantly."

Erin McClean & James McClean

"People ask me 'how do you deal with it?' and I always say 'ah, we're well used to that now' but why should we be?

"Why should we have to read messages like that, daily, for almost a decade? We've been spat at, shouted at, nights out have been ruined by people making remarks towards him. I even remember once someone threatened him saying that they were taking a gun to a certain match and I can still remember watching that match in absolute fear on the TV.

"Every single day I'm online I'm seeing support of those who have been abused online by the big media outlets and rightly so. No one should be able to sit at a computer or phone and type these messages without some form of consequence.

"Who actually even does this?! After this long it's something that I often wonder."

McClean castigated some media outlets for mentioning his position on the poppy, no matter what the reason for his being in the press.

"James is truly a good person, he loves nothing more than chilling at home with the kids. He can react to situations for sure, but he never initiates them."

Erin McClean signed off with a cautionary message.

"The internet these days is a scary place and anyone can write a threat to someone. My concern is if only one of those people throughout the years truly meant it. What happened to being kind?

"Some people can only take so much abuse given towards them and so many unnecessary and tragic things have happened in recent years from people on the receiving end."

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