Raheem Sterling has been racially abused online less than 48 hours after football’s social media boycott ended.

The abuse on Instagram was flagged up after his club, Manchester City, made it to their first Champions League final on Tuesday night.

“The racist abuse sent to Raheem Sterling is unacceptable and we do not want it on Instagram,” said a statement from Facebook, which owns Instagram.

“We have removed the comment and taken action against the account that posted it.

“As part of our ongoing work in this space, we’ll soon be rolling out new tools to help prevent people seeing abusive messages from strangers.

“No single thing will fix this challenge overnight but we’re committed to doing what we can to keep our community safe from abuse.”

Sterling is one of many players who have previously received racist messages online.

English football staged a four-day silence to protest at online abuse and discrimination, and what some say is the lack of tough measures by social media firms.

Clubs switched off their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, with the boycott ending on Monday night.

Rabbi Matondo, on loan at Stoke, was also abused in recent days, and tweeted: “Good to see the boycott changed nothing @instagram”.

A Stoke spokesperson said: “The club is aware of the disgusting racial abuse Rabbi Matondo received on social media overnight and will do everything we can to help the authorities bring the perpetrator to justice.

“We will not tolerate behaviour of this nature – there is no place in society for it and we will be reporting the offending post in line with the agreed procedure the EFL has in place.”

Swansea City players were also targeted by abuse during the boycott itself, with police investigating the source.

A Professional Footballers’ Association study, published last October, examined posts directed at 44 players and found more than 3,000 abusive messages on Twitter – 50% of them aimed at Sterling, Adebayo Akinfenwa and Wilfried Zaha.

At the time, Sterling said: “I don’t know how many times I need to say this, but football and the social media platforms need to step up, show real leadership and take proper action in tackling online abuse.

“The technology is there to make a difference, but I’m increasingly questioning if there is the will.”

Campaign group Kick It Out has four demands to try to clamp down on the abuse.

They include account verification to deter people from writing hateful comments while anonymous, tougher punishments, and the fast-tracking of an Online Harms Bill through parliament.

Related posts:

Greece invites Britons to start booking holidays as it targets 40 islands for vaccinations Charles hails ‘courage’ of Commonwealth during pandemic as hype builds over Sussexes’ Oprah interview People aged 56 to 59 invited to book in for a COVID jab from next week English football announces total social media boycott in response to online abuse Hillsborough disaster trial collapses as judge rules no case to answer Dominic Cummings says he heard PM say ‘let the bodies pile high’ ‘We locked eyes – I thought he was going to kill me’: Undercover cop describes moment he shot terror attacker ‘We’re normal people’: Women being targeted by trolls using online gossip forum ‘Tattle Life’ Javid warns of possible bad flu season due to concerning levels of immunity Experts warn of ‘last-resort’ restrictions as Omicron could cause at least 25,000 deaths in England Man shot dead after armed officers stopped vehicle near Kensington Gardens Over-30s in England invited to book third coronavirus jabs from Monday – as Omicron cases continue to rise