Eni Aluko: I won £360,000 in court. But challenging abuse cost me much more

People like to minimise online abuse as “hurty words” – a few seconds of typing, a cheap laugh, something that passes. That’s not what it costs.

It costs time you don’t get back. A sense of peace you don’t realise you’ve lost until calm feels unfamiliar. It costs relationships: friendships strained, trust broken, and it quietly erodes years of hard work. Some doors rarely slam shut; they simply stop opening.

And particularly for women who speak up, the cost escalates.

In my case, that cost became measurable. After a sustained campaign of abuse that moved from social media into the UK courts, accountability came in the form of criminal convictions and a civil outcome: a £360,000 libel award against Joey Barton for his campaign of hatred towards me and my family. Many will see that figure as justice. But money is not the full story. The real cost is what hate takes before accountability ever arrives and what it continues to take after you refuse to stay silent.

We know how widespread this is. One in five women in the UK report experiencing online abuse, often explicitly misogynistic and frequently involving threats of sexual or physical violence. But what is less discussed is what happens next when women challenge it. Because speaking up doesn’t end abuse, it multiplies it. It becomes more targeted, more strategic, more personal. The goal shifts from intimidation to correction, a deliberate effort to put you “back in your place.” The attention is deliberate and humiliation is the point. The message is clear: you can exist, but don’t challenge power.

For women, particularly black women in public life and sport, the boundaries are tightly policed. Be mute and cute. Be visible, but not influential. Speak, but don’t disrupt. Contribute, but don’t confront. When you cross that line, the consequences are not always explicit, but they are real. Standing up to abuse changes how you are perceived. It alters how you are treated professionally and socially, even when you are right. Your credibility is quietly renegotiated in rooms you are not in.

I am living through that shift. After more than two decades in football – on and off the pitch – my expertise shouldn’t be in question. Yet the very moment I began speaking out about abuse, the narrative changed. My informed opinions became “self-serving”. My presence became “controversial” and my persona was “unlikeable”.

The same pattern appeared earlier in my career. When I spoke out privately against racist treatment within the England setup, I found myself dropped from the team within two weeks of the “confidential” report and never played for England again. Again, the issue was reframed not as a problem to be addressed but as a disruption to be managed.

Women who speak up are not only exposed to abuse; they are also denied protection. Instead of support, they encounter isolation, gaslighting and reputational damage. They are labelled “difficult”, “entitled”, or “playing the victim”. The focus shifts from the behaviour being challenged to blaming the woman challenging it. The mob chorus of “she brought the abuse on herself” becomes the way to absolve the abusers.

Opportunities can become less accessible. A woman can move from “respected” to “risky” without any change in her actual performance. This is the hidden cost: not just of enduring abuse, but of being professionally penalised for refusing to accept it. Hate relies on this dynamic. Not only on those who perpetrate it, but on the systems and bystanders who allow it to reshape narratives. Silence becomes more convenient than accountability. That is why consequences matter.

Legal outcomes send a signal – not just to abusers, but to everyone watching. They establish that the online world is not lawless and that sustained campaigns of harassment are not harmless. They reinforce that women are not unreasonable for feeling unsafe, and that abuse is not simply the price of visibility.

But legal consequences alone are not enough. If the cultural response to women speaking up continues to be suspicion, exclusion or reputational damage, then the underlying problem remains. Women are still being asked to absorb harm in exchange for participation. And many make a rational calculation: stay silent or pay the price. That is why the cost of speaking up must be acknowledged honestly.

It is not just emotional. It’s professional and it’s financial. It affects how you are seen, how you are treated and what opportunities remain available to you. At the same time, silence carries its own cost. Because when abuse goes unchallenged, it becomes normalised. The expectations of what women must tolerate expand and the next woman faces an even steeper price for speaking. The real issue is not whether speaking up is difficult – it is why it remains so costly.

A fair system would not punish women for naming harm. It would not recast expertise as bias, or integrity as self-interest. It would not allow narratives about competence and behaviour to be hijacked as retaliation for challenge. Until that changes, the reality remains: the cost of hate is real – personally and financially.

But in my experience, the cost of silence is greater. So use your voice.