Sheffield Wednesday's Will Vaulks urges clubs to ban players from using social media - and did he come close to a Rotherham United return in January?

The prevalence of those involved in a working capacity in football, particularly players, commentators and summarisers, being the target for online abuse is sadly becoming commonplace in the game with a number of high-profile examples.

Only this week, former England striker and broadcaster Eni Aluko went public to criticise Elon Musk's X social network for allowing people to "vomit their hatred unchecked".

Vaulks, speaking ahead of Saturday’s South Yorkshire derby at former club Rotherham United, said: “If I could as a manager, I’d ban players being on social media. It is truly awful for players.

"I’ve seen it time and time again and they have to get off it. I can’t believe what I see sometimes.

"I can’t go into it too much. What players are looking at on social medial is frightening. If I could I’d ban it. I think we should.

"But you can’t do that because there are grown men and they make their own decisions in life.

"But it is the best thing I did (coming off social media).

"Any young player, in my opinion, shouldn’t be on a platform that is allowing people to talk absolute nonsense.

"Abuse…One minute you are the best player at (Sheffield) Wednesday, the next minute you are awful and don’t deserve to wear the shirt.

"That’s just the minority. But players see these things. You can blame the media companies as much as you want, but I think players should take responsibility and just come off it.

"Unless you have a million followers and are making a million pounds every month from your endorsements and you have got to be on it, in my opinion who does it help?

"It doesn’t help any player.

"I had a good relationship with fans from being on there. That’s gone now and you can’t say anything on it without it being taken the wrong way.

"I’m quite passionate about it, but I see it actively affecting players’ performances and their confidence is going when we’re thinking: ‘what’s going on here, I think they are playing quite well.’

"Which is why I don’t go near it and I have no interest in people’s opinions who don’t know the game.”

“I listened to (BBC Radio) Five Live the other day and they spoke to Eni Aluko and she was saying that they’d basically managed to track down one of her trolls and they spoke to him and he just said: ‘I just thought it was a bit of banter and i just thought I’d get a bit of attention, it’s harmless.’

"But he was saying some awful, sexist, misogynistic things to her threatening her with things.

"Some people don’t realise we are human and people actually see these things and take it seriously.

"It needs education, but it’s going to take so long. But I think as players, we shouldn’t be on it.”

Vaulks makes a return to a place he knows well on Saturday in the AESSEAL New York Stadium for a game of key significance at the bottom of the Championship.

The former Millers midfielder was linked with a move back to his former club in January, but the Wirral-born player says that the reports were just transfer window rumours.

Addressing talk of a new year return to Rotherham and the prospects of it, Vaulks, out of contract at Wednesday in the summer, commented: “I don’t think so.

"I think it’s the time of year where clubs are (reportedly) trying to sign people and our club are trying to get rid of people and there was a lot of ‘rumour mill.’

"I obviously heard about it because people mentioned it to me. I came in here and people were saying: ‘You are going to Rotherham.’ I don’t think that was ever on the cards, to be honest with you.”