London: The Football Association has demanded action from the police and social media companies after online death and rape threats were made against England international Karen Carney.
Carney was subject to the abuse on Instagram after scoring the only goal as Chelsea beat Fiorentina in the women’s Champions League on Wednesday.
The midfielder received three messages from a user account, which has since been deleted, wishing her “cancer and leukemia” and saying “I hope someone will rape you to death.”
Carney simply responded by saying “wow, some people” in a post with England manager Phil Neville sharing a screen grab of the posts, saying “A message sent to one of my lionesses players last night absolutely disgraceful — instagram are you going to do something about it!!!!!”
“We are appalled and dismayed by the abuse directed towards Karen Carney on social media,” the FA said in a statement on Thursday.
“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.”
Carney played 131 times for England since 2005. — dpa
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