Aluko accuses Barton of 'deliberately' causing her 'severe social media abuse'

Eni Aluko has accused Joey Barton of putting her through 'one of the worst cases of social media abuse I've ever experienced' after the former Premier League footballer directed a series of vile sexist messages at the TV pundit online.

Barton has regularly called for women to not be involved in men's football in recent months, and has singled out Aluko in several posts on his X account.

He compared Aluko and female commentator Lucy Ward to serial killers Fred and Rose West last month, before then saying the former was 'clearly in the Joseph Stalin category' for 'murdering hundreds of thousands of fans' ears'.

After receiving support from ITV, Aluko revealed that she had taken legal action against Barton, while also claiming she left the UK due to being 'genuinely scared' for her safety following Barton's comments.

Appearing on BBC Breakfast on Thursday morning, Aluko explained the impact that Barton's tirade has had on her.

'I can only describe it as waves caving in on you,' she said.

'I think the nature of Joey Barton's tweets were consecutive over the course of a week.

'There were several tweets, he continued to double-down even after ITV came out in mine and Lucy Ward's defence, and actually was deliberately trying to get worse and incite other people to say the same. This is probably one of the worst cases of social media abuse I've ever experienced.'

Aluko admitted that being the target of social media experience is nothing new to her, but insisted that Barton's attacks were different due to the ex-Manchester City midfielder having 2.8million followers on X.

She believes he has incited others to also abuse her on social media, and has called for platforms such as X to do more to protect her moving forward rather than