Arsenal ban fan for offensive tweet

Arsenal, and many other Premier League clubs, work with a group called Kick It Out, which since 1993 has worked to promote equality and inclusion in football, and stamp out racism and other inequalities in the English game at all levels.

One of Kick It Out’s functions is to act as a watchdog, and to report to clubs when it sees a fan of a club saying racist, sexist, or homophobic things. Well, guess what? They do a great job, as one Arsenal “fan” found out the other day, when Klick It Out, the branch of Kick It Out that deals with social media and online interactions, found an Arsenal fan that was tweeting offensive things, and reported that fan to Arsenal.

Arsenal subsequently banned that fan indefinitely from Arsenal membership and from attending matches at the Emirates. In this particular case, it’s probably not a huge deal, as according to the ban letter the fan in question “does not hold any current active memberships”, so it’s not like they’re losing much. The fact that the club will take steps to prevent people who hate-tweet from attending Arsenal matches in person or using Arsenal’s online memberships is a great thing, though, for the club and for the world.

There may be a lot of jokes about me being the Thought Police around here, but if this is the kind of thing that gets thought policed, I’m all for it. There’s no room for that shit in the soccer world, not to mention in the world, and I’m glad clubs are being proactive about doing something to stop it.