THE Riddell and Essendon District football leagues are cracking down on players and officials commenting on social media sites.
Officials from both competitions say they have been made aware of Facebook pages that include offensive comments, including racist remarks, about other players and teams.
The Weekly has been made aware of four pages the leagues want shut.
Both leagues are concerned by the use of their official logos on the Facebook pages.
Two of the pages, “Shit RDFL players don’t say” and “Shit Romsey players don’t say” have been shut after complaints to Facebook, and officials are still trying to have “Shit EDFL players never say” and “EDFL memes” closed.
Many of the comments have been written by junior footballers.
The Riddell league wrote to all clubs last week, saying players could be suspended for posting on these pages.
“Any player posting, commenting on or creating [such] pages . . . will receive an automatic minimum two-week suspension with no appeal,” league operations manager Toby Boyle said in the letter.
“The comments and contents of this page and pages similar to it have a damaging effect on the RDFNL, its clubs and, above all, the players and officials within the clubs.”
Essendon league general manager Marc Turri said clubs would be contacted about players and officials posting on the sites.
“If players or officials are found to bring the game into disrepute [they] can be sanctioned, which includes suspension,” he said.
“We’re looking at having [the pages] shut down as they misrepresent the league and have no purpose.”
