A 69-year-old man, Brian Bealey, was fined 1,000 pounds after pleading guilty at Cambridge Magistrates' Court to sending racially aggravated abuse to England footballer Djed Spence on social media. He was traced after a referral from the Football Association and the Premier League following England's fixture against Uruguay in March.
Bealey posted multiple public comments on the social media platform X between March 17 and 29, directed at Spence — then a Tottenham Hotspur player, now with Inter Milan — and at other people. The messages contained racially offensive language and slurs and were assessed as grossly offensive and racially aggravated. They came to the authorities' attention after England's fixture against Uruguay on March 27, when the Football Association and the Premier League referred the posts to police.
Cambridgeshire Constabulary's dedicated football policing officer worked alongside the UK Football Policing Unit to trace the X account used to send the messages to Bealey, of Main Street, Witchford, near Ely. At Cambridge Magistrates' Court on September 17, Bealey pleaded guilty to sending offensive messages by public communication. He was fined £1,000.
Detective Sergeant Dominic Carminati, who investigated, said: "There is absolutely no place for racism, either in football or in society as a whole." He said Spence had been subjected to a series of offensive, degrading and racially aggravated messages intended to cause distress and spread hatred, and that the case demonstrates those who use online platforms to target others with racist abuse "can and will be identified." He urged anyone who experiences or witnesses racist abuse online to report it to the platform involved and to police.
The Football Association and the Premier League operate a joint monitoring programme that flags abusive messages directed at players and passes them to police, and it was that referral — made after England's fixture against Uruguay — that set the investigation in motion. Detective Sergeant Carminati praised the reporting that led to Bealey's identification, and police stressed that social-media users who believe they can hide behind anonymous accounts should think again.
The case is the latest in football's long-running battle with online racism targeting England players — a fight that has produced custodial sentences, stadium bans and sustained campaigns by the Football Association, the Premier League and players' unions. For Spence, now continuing his career at Inter Milan, the episode is over legally; for the police, it is another public warning that social-media accounts are not anonymous.