Watford players Troy Deeney, Adrian Mariappa and Christian Kabasele have all made complaints of racial abuse on their social media channels in the last two days.

On Monday, Deeney posted an image to his Instagram account that simply read 'No room for racism' with an accompanying caption that said:

"Due to events from the last 24 hours I will be taking comments off my posts, to me this isn’t a game, when you racially abuse my family or myself I have to take measures to prevent young people seeing these comments and thinking that it’s acceptable, And having to expose people I care about to these small minded people."

Mariappa responded to Deeney on Monday evening with post on his Instagram story that said "You weren't the only one" accompanied by a screenshot of a message containing racist abuse. 

Kabasele later added a post to his own Instagram story, in which both Deeney and Mariappa were both tagged, with the message "you are not alone" that also contained a screenshot of a racially charged message.

The Watford Observer understands that the club are working closely with the players and legal representatives to ensure the police are made aware of the instances and they have also informed Kick It Out of this course of action.

A representative from Kick it Out called on social media platforms to step up their efforts to eradicate racism from their sites.

They said: "We have long campaigned for social media companies to take swift and decisive action against people who use their platforms for hate speech.

"Twitter, for instance, say abuse and harassment has "no place" on its site but it is obvious that there really is a place for it there and in our view the problem is getting worse.

"We note that Twitter has a "Hateful Conduct Policy" and internal technology but evidently neither is deterrent for the racists.

"We would ask all the social media companies to put a lot greater resources into finding, reporting and excluding these people and co-operating with the police to make sure they are punished.

"Footballers, like anyone in society, are entitled to go about their work without being abused, intimidated or trolled."

Recently a number of incidents involving players receiving racist abuse have drawn criticism from some players about the way racism is dealt with by the Football Association.

Tottenham Hotspur and England defender Danny Rose has said he cannot wait to retire from the sport, such is the impact racial abuse is having on him, while his England team-mate Raheem Sterling has frequently spoken out about being on the end of racism.

Meanwhile, over the last weekend, two Championship players, Derby County's Duane Holmes and Wigan defender Nathan Byrne reportedly received racist abuse during matches, while Crystal Palace's Wilfried Zaha also complained of abuse from a Newcastle United fan.