The world of sport has begun its social media boycott to challenge online abuse.

Since English football figures announced the move – which started at 3pm on Friday and runs until 11.59pm on Monday – the boycott has grown as other sports' governing bodies, sponsors, partners, broadcasters and media outlets have joined in.

A coalition of football's largest governing bodies and organisations, including the Football Association, Premier League and EFL, were among those to go silent on social media in a show of solidarity against sustained and spiralling abuse.

Football's daily chatter will come to a stop at a crucial time of the season when trophy, promotion and relegation issues are all at stake.

European governing body UEFA is also taking part, as well as Scottish and Irish football, England Rugby, Scottish Rugby, British Cycling, the Rugby Football League, British Horseracing, the England and Wales Cricket Board, the Lawn Tennis Association, International Tennis Federation and others.

It is a campaign which has gained incredible momentum in recent days and one the Duke of Cambridge has joined to stand alongside "the entire football community".

In January, Prince William, who is president of the FA, hit out at racist abuse in football, describing it as "despicable" and saying it "must stop" after several black players were targeted online.

Soon before 3pm, in a tweet signed W for William, the future king pledged his support.

The post, from the Kensington Royal account, read: "As President of the FA I join the entire football community in the social media boycott this weekend. W."

Earlier, Manchester United confirmed the club had banned six fans for abusing Tottenham's Son Heung-min and revealed online abuse aimed at their players had increased by 350 per cent in the past 20 months.

United players have been frequent targets and the club's own in-depth review of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook has found 3,300 abusive posts were aimed at their players between September 2019 to February 2021.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton has 22 million followers on Instagram and more than six million on Twitter.

In a post ahead of the boycott, Hamilton said: "To stand in solidarity with the football community, I will be going dark on my social media channels this weekend.

"There is no place in our society for any kind of abuse, online or not, and for too long it's been easy for a small few to post hate from behind their screens.

"While a boycott might not solve this issue overnight, we have to call for change when needed, even when it seems like an almost impossible task. Sport has the power to unite us.

"Let's not accept abuse as part of sport, but instead, let's be the ones who make a difference for future generations."