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Declan Rice has revealed threats were made against him and his family after switching allegiance from the Republic of Ireland to England.<\/p>\nDeclan Rice has revealed threats were made against him and his family after switching allegiance from the Republic of Ireland to England.<\/p>\n
Having represented Ireland at youth level and won three senior caps, the 20-year-old made waves at the start of the year by announcing his attention to switch to the country of his birth.<\/p>\n
Rice won his fourth England cap in Saturday\u2019s s 4-0 defeat of Bulgaria and the change of nationality did not go down well with some, leading to some vitriolic online abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019ve had a few bad bits,\u201d he told ITV News when asked about social media attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had people saying they\u2019re going to come to my house\u2026yeah online.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a few bits I could go into, but I don\u2019t need to go into it, threats to my family, threats to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou click on their profile and they\u2019d just be a fake profile, so don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s true or not.<\/p>\n
It was tough, there has been some abuse, it was more for my mum and dad really. They were more worried about me than anyone else<\/p>\n
\u201cBut do you know what? I know, thinking about it now, I was never actually scared about it, because always fans are going to be giving me abuse and whatnot over it. You just kind of look at it and laugh, you think, \u2018Yeah, all right, as if you\u2019re going to come and do that type of thing\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was tough, there has been some abuse, it was more for my mum and dad really.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were more worried about me than anyone else, I was always quite strong minded.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mum obviously with me being her youngest, she was always a bit worried. Other than that, I don\u2019t take any notice of it. I just try to keep focused.\u201d<\/p>\n
The control and protection, or rather lack thereof, on social media platforms is a hot topic right now given racist abuse aimed at the likes of Paul Pogba, Tammy Abraham and Kurt Zouma.<\/p>\n
England forward Marcus Rashford, another targeted online, last week said the fight against racism was \u201cgoing backwards rather than forwards\u201d and called on social media platforms to get a grip on the issue.<\/p>\n
Making individuals accountable for their accounts has regularly been mentioned as a potential step forward and Rice cannot believe the number of fake profiles that are allowed to be created.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s outrageous, even with the racism thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if you look at half these people\u2019s profiles, they\u2019re fake profiles. There\u2019s someone behind it, but they\u2019re using a fake profile and they\u2019re still getting caught out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in 2019 and it\u2019s happening week in week out, it\u2019s not good enough, we need to stamp our authority better.\u201d<\/p>\n