IRFU to make complaint to gardaí over racist abuse of Cork rugby player

The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) is to make an official complaint to Gardaí in the coming days in relation to social media accounts based in Ireland linked to the racist abuse of Cobh native and Ireland international rugby player Edwin Edogbo.

Last month, Edogbo made his debut for Ireland against Italy in the Six Nations rugby clash in Dublin.

Unfortunately, the occasion was marred by online racist abuse directed at the player on the Irish Rugby social media channels.

Posts on the IRFU X and Instagram accounts celebrating Edogbo’s first cap for Ireland attracted a number of distasteful comments.

In the aftermath, the IRFU has been collaborating with the data technology company Signify to investigate the online abuse which was directed at the Munster and Ireland player.

The 23-year-old Edogbo was born and raised in Cobh to Nigerian parents.

An IRFU spokesperson told The Echo:“The IRFU can confirm it has received five case files from their partner Signify. Three of these appear to have accounts based in Ireland. The IRFU will be making an official complaint to An Garda Síochána in the coming days.

“If any accounts are found to have links to rugby club members, we will not hesitate to take action.

“There is no place for anyone in a rugby club who behaves in this manner.” 

Speaking to The Echo, UCC lecturer Stephen McCarthy said the online racist abuse of Irish sports stars such as Edogbo has the potential to get worse going forward.

“It is going to be a tough few years when it comes to these types of cases and we are very likely going to see more of them.

"Attention is everything online and unfortunately these posts get attention.

“Bots that we saw over the last 10 years tended to be pre-programmed and had rules, they might just generate the same text multiple times.

“But now, with Agentic AI, these more advanced bots can respond to comments and message people."