Melbourne Storm refer troll threats to NRL Integrity Unit and police
Menacing threats to kill and severe racial abuse directed towards Melbourne Storm stars has led the NRL heavyweight to take drastic action against internet trolls.
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Melbourne Storm has taken a strong stand against cyber abuse towards its stars in a bid to unmask and potentially prosecute internet trolls.
A spate of menacing threats to kill or cause serious injury and racial abuse has led the Storm board-endorsed crackdown.
Storm has referred up to 10 threats to the NRL Integrity Unit already, including one where the troll has threatened to “break a player’s legs”.
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News Australia on Wednesday established a number of the referrals have been given to police in Australia and New Zealand for further investigation.
AFL and NRL stars, including Storm speedsters Ryan Papenhuyzen and Josh Addo-Carr, have called out the abuse previously.
Storm chief executive Dave Donaghy urged rugby league fans — the lifeblood of the game — to reconsider their actions.
“There is a clear line of what’s acceptable and what’s not,” Donaghy said.
“It’s easy this day and age to get emotional and fire off comments that are hurtful, threatening and racist.
“None of that has any place at our club, and none of that has any place in society, our athletes are high profile but it shouldn’t make them easy targets.
“It’s a pretty sad indictment on our society if we’re accepting of that type of behaviour because it will be permeating throughout the community.”
Papenhuyzen last month backed Brisbane Lions AFL star Mitch Robinson’s condemnation of trolls and revealed players often avoided social media immediately after matches.
It sparked conversations at Storm and the NRL about the need to refer the serious abuse to police.
Victoria Police last month coincidently charged a 39 year-old Melbourne man for allegedly stalking and threatening Richmond premiership defender Dylan Grimes.
“We have worked through a process where we’re referring any online abuse to the NRL Integrity Unit,” Donaghy said.
“They’re passing it through to the police to investigate whether it meets the threshold of online abusive behaviour or not.
“It needs to be called out and stopped and unfortunately if you need to take action like this to do it you have to, you can’t sit back and tolerate it because it’s totally unacceptable.
“We protect our players physically, (now) you got to protect them in the cyber world too.”
Originally published as Melbourne Storm refer troll threats to NRL Integrity Unit and police
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