A PREMIER League star has revealed he was threatened by a troll who vowed to come to his house and kill him and his family.
Neal Maupay, 27, scored a last-minute winner for Brighton & Hove Albion against Arsenal in June 2020.
The Frenchman, who is now on-loan at Brentford from Everton, also unintentionally injured goalkeeper Bernd Leno during the game.
He then received a tidal wave of threats on social media, the BBC reported.
“I got home and got a phone call from the club saying, listen, there’s a lot of stuff going on online,” he told the BBC Radio 4 podcast, Why Do You Hate Me?.
“We advise you to switch off your social media and deactivate your accounts if you want to.”
The striker got a message from an anonymous account which warned that his “loved ones would go through suffering”.
It also threatened to harm him and said: “Your family will be attacked later in the day just watch.”
Maupay recalled: “It was very disturbing. I called the club and I said, we need to do something, because what if that guy is really coming to my house?”
He blocked the account, but the person created another profile.
The next message read: “You think by reporting my account you’re safe? I will kill you and your family.”
Tim Cooper, who leads the Premier League troll-busting unit, said: “We don’t often see repeat infringers – the same person sending the same messages.
“We often see it as one outburst, rather than a real spiral of abuse aimed at one particular individual.
“So it’s quite a unique case with Maupay where it was one user and then a follow up.”
Maupay was one of the first players to refer abuse to Cooper’s team.
“I had to do it because I wanted to make sure we were reporting these people and trying to get them punished for it,” he said.
“I think it’s my responsibility as a person and as a football player to report it and try to change it. I think to ignore it is not the solution.”
Cooper’s team were able to trace the comments to a 19-year-old based in Singapore, Derek Ng De Ren.
Ng was an Arsenal fan and blamed his team’s loss on Maupay injuring Leno.
The teenager was eventually handed a nine-month probation order.
The Premier League said it was the first time it was able to successfully work on a case of abuse from overseas.
Watch Why Do You Hate Me? Hunting Premier League Trolls on BBC iPlayer or listen to the full podcast on BBC Sounds.
