No escaping social media abuse, says Chiefs’ Stuart Baxter

Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter says it is impossible to shield his players from the abuse that is at times thrown at them on social media.  

Several Chiefs players have been on the receiving end of some nasty comments on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, especially when the club loses matches.

Baxter himself has not escaped abuse and has been the target of insults as he attempts to reawake the once mighty Amakhosi.

Some fans have gone as far as to say he must be shown the door because he continues to experiment with his line-ups, loses matches and has drawn against less-fancied opponents. 

Chiefs captain Bernard Parker has been a huge source of discontent among some fans over the years and his critics have never hidden their unhappiness with him. He will have silenced a lot of them on Sunday after he not only won the man-of-the-match award in the game against Supersport United but also scored the two goals that earned a 2-1 win.

Baxter admitted he is aware of the comments directed at himself and at some of his players but can do very little about it.

“I can’t shield players from social media. What  you can do is try to flag [the comments] for them. 

“You know, I would not criticise a brain surgeon on social media because I know nothing about it. With social media today, people are free to express their feelings whether they are qualified or not. 

“And that tsunami then develops. I am sure Bernard [Parker] has experienced it, I have certainly experienced it. Steven Gerrard was talking about it the other day.

“What you can do is hope people can deal with it because we need to work and deal with what is actually happening now and not what social media will say if I am not successful, or what they have said because they make me a scapegoat.”