{"id":490888,"date":"2026-02-19T20:32:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T20:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490888\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T20:32:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T20:32:16","slug":"maro-itoje-has-his-say-on-edwin-edogbo-in-wake-of-social-media-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490888\/","title":{"rendered":"Maro Itoje has his say on Edwin Edogbo in wake of social media abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

England<\/a> captain Maro Itoje<\/a> has criticised the \u201ccorrosive\u201d effects of social media in response to the racial abuse faced by Ireland\u2019s Edwin Edogbo<\/a> following his international debut.<\/p>\n

Edogbo, born and raised in County Cork to Nigerian parents, was targeted online after his appearance as a replacement in Saturday\u2019s 20-13 Guinness Six Nations<\/a> victory over Italy.<\/p>\n

The Irish Rugby Football Union is investigating the abuse having been forced to disable comments on a post on its X account in which Edogbo is pictured holding his first cap, accompanied by the caption \u201cOur latest debutant\u201d.<\/p>\n

Itoje, who will win his 100th England cap against Ireland<\/a> at Allianz Stadium on Saturday, said: \u201cIt\u2019s very sad on two fronts.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media has been a force for good in many ways, but it\u2019s been a force for negativity in a lot of other ways.<\/p>\n

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Head-to-Head <\/p>\n

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Last 5 Meetings<\/p>\n

Average Points scored<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s really important for athletes, as well as ordinary people, not to live their life based on what social media says about them. It will just be a horrible way to live your life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d advise all top level athletes not to spend too much time on social media because it\u2019s really corrosive, both from the negativity that\u2019s on there but also what it does to our brains.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re going to see in the coming years a huge amount of damage that has been done to us as humans and as a society as a result of social media in terms of brains and brain development.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecondly, the stuff around Edwin is obviously incredibly sad. It\u2019s something that no one should have to go through and it\u2019s a further reminder that there\u2019s still work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Itoje insists athletes need to have a social media presence for the benefit of their careers but the British and Irish Lions<\/a> skipper urges caution over its use, including not being seduced by any hype.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very dangerous, not only for the negativity but even when it is positive it can be corrosive,\u201d Itoje said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat tends to happen is positive news tends to be extremely positive and negative news seems to be extremely negative and in reality you are always somewhere in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Football has been tarnished by racism this week after Real Madrid\u2019s Vinicius Jr was allegedly abused by Gianluca Prestianni of Benfica during a Champions League. Prestianni denies the allegation, which is being investigated by UEFA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have these incidents that happen which are terribly sad and they should be condemned with full force when they do happen,\u201d Itoje said.\u201cBut what happened to Vinicius Jr\u202630 years ago that probably wouldn\u2019t have even made the press. The referee would have told him to get on with it. His team-mates probably would have said that to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo while the stuff we\u2019re seeing, whether it\u2019s Vinicius Jr., whether it\u2019s Edwin Edogbo<\/a>, they are terribly sad and we as a community need to keep on stamping this type of thing out.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do also believe that we are moving in somewhat the right direction, although moving in somewhat the direction is not a given.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England captain Maro Itoje has criticised the \u201ccorrosive\u201d effects of social media in response to the racial abuse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-490888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}