ENGLAND WOMEN’S MANAGER Phil Neville has asked social media platform Instagram to take action after one of his players received death and rape threats.
Chelsea footballer Karen Carney was subjected to abhorrent abuse on Instagram following the London side’s 1-0 win over Fiorentina in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
“How many chances you need to score in second half stupid bitch,” the message read. “I wish you cancer and leukaemia. I hope someone will rape you to death.”
The 31-year-old posted a screenshot of the message to her Instagram account with the caption: “Wow some people…”
Neville posted another message on his account claiming it was another threat sent to his players. It read: “I’m going to rape and kill you. Can I get a headline on bbc sport?”
The England manager today responded to abusive messages by saying: “Another disgraceful awful despicable message sent to one of my Lionesses – Instagram can you do a better job at protecting my players who use your social media platform!!”
The FA strongly condemned the threats in a statement yesterday and offered their full support to the Chelsea captain.
“We are appalled and dismayed by the abuse directed towards Karen Carney on social media,” the statement read.
“The FA takes such matters extremely seriously and we are offering our full support to Karen.
The abuse of players on social networking sites is a serious concern and we call on the police and social media organisations to do everything they can to help tackle this growing problem.
“We provide all our senior England players with training, guidance and support on the use of social media and treat our duty of care in this regard with the utmost importance.”
Chelsea too gave their backing to Carney, describing the abuse as “abhorrent and totally unacceptable”.
Carney has won 133 caps for her country since her debut in 2005 was made captain of her club side at the beginning of September.
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