Warrington winger Josh Charnley discusses shock at being sent death threats by Wolves supporter

Warrington Wolves winger Josh Charnley has revealed his shock at being sent a death threat on social media by one of the club’s supporters. Charnley was sent the abusive messages online after the Wolves were beaten by Hull Kingston Rovers last month amidst a difficult run of results for the Wire.

The Super League club acted swiftly and promptly, handing the man a long-term ban as well as issuing another unnamed female supporter a ban too. However, Warrington and Charnley offered the male supporter an opportunity to meet and discuss the matter further.

He accepted, and as part of the Rugby Football League’s ‘Tackle It’ initiative, the pair recently met to discuss the gravity and severity of online abuse. Charnley conceded in an interview to BBC Breakfast that seeing the abusive messages left him stunned.

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“You could see he was shaking, he felt embarrassed about it,” Charnley told BBC Breakfast. “He wouldn’t have said that to me in that room, no chance. If you can meet them then you can get your point across and hopefully they’ll take that on the chin.”

“I don’t know why I was targeted. It wasn’t nice to see and I don’t want to be getting comments like that and my family thinking I’m in danger. It shocked me at first. We don’t go out there every week to get beat.”

Charnley’s wife, Zoe, also admitted she was concerned for her husband’s safety after being informed of the messages, reiterating that the convenience social media provides to contact sports stars makes it easier for them to be targeted by abuse.

“Sometimes I think fans forget that they are human and they’ve got lives as well. They don’t see what we see at home,” she said. “I feel like it’s always been there but it’s a lot easier for people to put it out there because of social media.

“It makes you worried because you don’t now these people, we’ve never met this person, we don’t know if he’s going to do anything about these threats. It’s not nice for Josh’s parents.”

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