By Nick Ware

27th Apr, 2021 | 10:48am

West Brom journalist accuses Leeds of 'taking the moral high ground' over social media boycott

West Brom journalist Chris Lepkowski has laid into Leeds United over their decision to join the Premier League social media protest.

All 20 Premier League sides announced on Saturday evening that they would be staging a social media boycott from 15:00 on April 30 to 23:59 on May 3 to try and tackle online discrimination.

Leeds tweeted the news on their official account and added a “No room for racism’ badge.”

But ex-Birmingham Mail journalist Lepkowski took aim at the Whites for it on his weekly West Brom podcast ‘The Liquidator‘ [26/04/21] and accused them of hypocrisy over their stance on goalkeeper Kiko Casilla.

“It all feels like a bit of a cosmetic exercise, I’ve been really uncomfortable with clubs trying to take a moral high ground,” he said.

“I’m reluctant to single clubs out but I will.

“Leeds – their official Twitter feed managed to hound off social media a female football journalist earlier this year because she had the temerity to offer an opinion about Leeds.

“They have also previously indulged a footballer who has been accused and found guilty of making racist comments.”

Superfluous slamming

The controversy that followed the Leeds tweet about Karen Carney has been well publicised now.

The club took a lot of flak for it with pundits queuing up to lambast Leeds for what felt like an eternity.

We don’t want to drag all that up again – the considered view was that it was not targeted abuse at Carney or sexist, but rather a continuation of the club’s Twitter account that had bit back at various pundits, male and female, over perceived digs at Leeds.

But perhaps the club should have been aware that such a tweet would lead to an inevitable pile-on from ignorant sexists in the replies.

However we don’t understand Lepkowski’s stance here – did he want us to reject the social media boycott while all other clubs took part? How would he have reacted then?

The social media protest is supposed to be a closing of the ranks of the evil elements of online interactions, and it should be binding people together.

What we don’t need are people using it to take cheap shots at Leeds.

In other Leeds United news, Whites set to make big offer within weeks for Bielsa favourite from cash-strapped side.