Football has united in its condemnation of Twitter, Facebook and Instragram in an explosive letter to the platforms' chief executives, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg.
The open letter demands that Dorsey and Zuckerberg bring the 'vicious' abuse of players, staff and officials to an end for reasons of 'basic human decency'.
And it accuses them of allowing their sites to become 'havens for abuse'.
The letter, signed by the leaders of the Premier League, Football Association, Professional Footballers' Association, Kick It Out, the League Managers' Association, the referees organisation PGMOL and the women's game, makes demands of the big tech firms.
The authors insist:
The letter states: 'As recent weeks have seen the levels of vicious, offensive abuse from users of your services aimed at footballers and match officials rise even further, we write to ask that for reasons of basic human decency you use the power of your global systems to bring this to an end.
'The language used is debasing, often threatening and illegal. It causes distress to the recipients and the vast majority of people who abhor racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind.
'We have had many meetings with your executives over the years but the reality is your platforms remain havens for abuse.
'Your inaction has created the belief in the minds of the anonymous perpetrators that they are beyond reach.
'The relentless flow of racist and discriminatory messages feeds on itself: the more it is tolerated by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, platforms with billions of users, the more it becomes normal, accepted behaviour.'
The move comes after Chelsea’s centre back, Antonio Rudiger, revealed he has suffered 'immense' racist abuse on social media, and the club passed information to police about the appalling treatment of Reece James, the talented, young full back.
These incidents prompted the club's owner, Roman Abramovich to write to every Chelsea player to offer his support for those who have suffered racism pledging to provide additional funding for the club's anti-racism efforts.
Manchester United's Marcus Rashford, Axel Tuanzebe, Anthony Martial, Southampton's Alex Jankewitz, and West Brom's Romaine Sawyers have all reported that they have been racially abused on social media.
Manchester United and England Women forward Lauren James, Reece's younger sister, is the latest footballer to have been subjected to sickening racist abuse on social media.
James, 19, shared the vile screenshot of a number of monkey emojis directed to her by one particular user on her Instagram story.
Last week, Chelsea winger Callum Hudson Odoi went on the offensive after it emerged social media companies did not class emojis, such as monkeys, as offensive.
He told beIN Sports: 'How can that make sense? If somebody puts for example, a monkey emoji towards a player - why is that? How is a player a monkey? What does that mean to a player?'
And it's not just players who are affected by abuse. On Monday, Merseyside Police confirmed they are looking into death threats made to referee Mike Dean and his family after he controversially sent off West Ham's Tomas Soucek - a decision which has since been reversed - in Saturday's 0-0 draw with Fulham.
This week, Instagram announced some changes on its platform to limit direct abusive messages, but this does not go far enough for the football leaders, who include, Mark Bullingham, the chief executive of the FA; Richard Masters, chief executive of the Premier League; Trevor Birch, EFL chief; Gordon Taylor, head of the PFA, and Sanjay Bhandari, from the anti-racism organisation, Kick It Out.
'We ask you to accept that none of your users should be hounded off your platforms, losing access to the great communications media of our times, because of their gender or the colour of their skin,' they continued.
'The targets of abuse should be offered basic protections, and we ask that you accept responsibility for preventing abuse from appearing on your platforms and go further than you have promised to do to date.'