SWINDON Town Football Club, Trust STFC and Swindon Town Official Supporters Club will be joining a four-day social media blackout by football clubs this weekend in protest over the way online companies handle racist abuse.

A coalition of English football’s largest governing bodies and organisations – including the Football Association, Premier League and EFL – will also go silent on social media in a show of solidarity against racism and discriminatory behaviour.

Many high-profile organisations and football bodies plan to suspend all use of their social media accounts from 3pm on Friday, April 30 until 11.59pm on Monday, May 3.

Stuart Woollard – of Trust STFC – said both fan groups in Swindon were unanimously behind the decision to take a stand against online abuse.

He said: “Our position is clearly that racism is unacceptable in any form of life, and there is a problem in respect to football and particularly online.

“As a Trust, we want to encourage as diverse a fan base as possible and for everyone to feel welcome at football.

“For that reason, we feel it’s important to support the boycott along with the Official Supporters Club.

“We’d also encourage other fans to police each other and call out unacceptable behaviour as and when they come across it – particularly online.”

The move follows social media blackouts by Swansea City, Birmingham City and Glasgow Rangers in recent weeks, with Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson stating he would be willing to follow Arsenal great Thierry Henry in coming offline altogether in protest against racist behaviour.

Trust STFC’s Stuart Woollard believes while the protest will hopefully force change from social media companies, his personal view is that racism is a wider societal issue that can only be stamped out through education.

He said: “Hopefully, this will be a more meaningful event in that it’s four days, it’s getting a lot of publicity, and hopefully it will encourage the social media platforms to do everything they can to stamp this out.

“But this is really about can the social media platforms look at themselves in the mirror and say they’ve done everything they possibly can to stamp it out? If this encourages that, then this boycott is worthwhile.”