The Premier League, EFL and Women's Super League are monitoring the social media accounts of all their players in a bid to protect footballers from the rising tide of online hate.
The leagues have painstakingly gathered the handles of players and staff in order to keep tabs on the abuse that is routinely meted out at all levels of the game.
The move is seen as a 'safety net' by football officials, who believe the primary responsibility for protecting users on social media rests with the platforms themselves.
The Arsenal full back Bellerin received a barrage of homophobic abuse on Twitter
The monitoring will also be used to gather data on the scale of the abuse crisis and the results will be used to put further pressure on the big tech companies, like Facebook and Twitter, to take action.