Erin McClean has revealed that she, her husband James and their family have been subjected to “nine years of constant abuse” since moving to England report the BBC.
The wife of the Stoke City winger has spoken out after her husband James shared a direct message from Instagram that threatened to set his family home on fire.
Mrs. McClean said someone had previously threatened to “take a gun with them to a certain match” saying “I still remember watching that match in absolute fear on the TV.”
Erin went into more detail of their abuse and revealed: “There isn’t a day that goes by that either one of us don’t receive a message of some sort, whether it be a threat or telling us to get out of England,” said Erin in a post shared on social media.
“We’ve been spat on, shouted at. Nights out have been ruined by people making remarks towards him.
“We have tried as hard as possible to keep them away from it all but there have been times when we’ve been out shopping and there are people making remarks towards James in front of the kids.
“We can take the name-calling and the rest but what we cannot accept is threatening our family home and our children’s lives. They don’t deserve this.”
The Stoke City and Republic of Ireland international McClean shared images of his Instagram inbox which contains abusive anti-Irish messages as well as death threats.
McClean has spoken publicly recently about the abuse he receives for being Irish but how his form of abuse goes unnoticed or is just ignored.
The 31-year-old posted a statement on his Instagram page on Friday and asked: “Does being abused for being Irish and anti Irish abuse acceptable? Is it not popular enough to be… spoke out about too?
The Stoke man shared an image from an abusive message he reviewed on Instagram that threatened to burn down his home. The message said: “Don’t make me set your house on fire and burn everyone inside it”
McClean has been subject to abuse for his entire career and it seems the Derry man has had enough as he tries to bring sectarian abuse to the anti-discrimination table.
During an interview with Sky Sports News last April McClean said “Footballers are a free hit. It’s like it’s viewed as we earn this amount of money so we should just take it.”