The most abused Premier League star on social media has been revealed

The amount of abuse some footballers receive on social is absolutely staggering.

Kick It Out have undertaken a study on cyberbullying of Premier League footballers and the results are quite shocking. The organisation analysed messages sent to clubs and players on Twitter, Facebook forums and blogs between August 2014 and March 2015, and found that a club or player receives an abusive message every 2.6 minutes. Liverpool's Mario Balotelli is the most abused player on social media while Chelsea is the club that gets the greatest number of discriminatory messages on the internet. Balotelli received over 8,000 discriminatory messages which dwarfs Danny Welbeck, who was the second most abused with 1,700 offensive messages. At least 50 per cent of the abuse directed at both players was racist, while Liverpool's Daniel Sturridge received 1,600, 60 per cent of which was related to sexual orientation.

The top five clubs in the league were also received the most abusive posts, with Chelsea receiving 20,000, Liverpool 19,000, Arsenal 12,000 and Manchester United and City both getting 11,000.

Just under a third of the abusive posts were racist, a quarter were based on gender and almost a fifth related to sexual orientation.

Hat-tip to Daily Mail