Chelsea Women’s Karen Carney will not be pressing charges against the person who wrote on Instagram “I hope someone will rape you to death.”
The messages were sent after Chelsea’s win against Fiorentina in the Champions League on Wednesday night, with the Chelsea captain later posting “wow, some people…”
Despite the win, one fan took exception to a wasteful Chelsea side in front of goal. Starting the posts with: “How many chances you need to score in second half bitches.” Before hurling further abuse.
The FA said in a statement: “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.”
Carney has won 133 caps scoring 31 goals for England, since making her debut in 2005.
England Women’s manager Phil Neville commented on the abuse;“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!!”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpD7otGB8ED/?taken-by=philipneville18
An Instagram spokesperson said to BBC Sport in response: “We do not tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour, and the account that sent these messages has been removed from Instagram.
“We encourage anyone who sees content of this kind to report it via our in-app tools and our global team work 24/7 to review and remove anything that violates our Community Guidelines.”
The Metropolitan police has said it encourages anyone who is a victim of such abuse to contact the police so an investigation can be carried out.
https://twitter.com/SportswomenSky/status/1052949093436272641
Carney isn’t the only sports star to receive online abuse this week.
Mark King, a professional snooker player, posted the death threats he had received after his 4-2 loss to Ryan Day in the third round of English Open.
Love these messages pic.twitter.com/ot5Z2AJf7z
— mark king (@markking147) October 18, 2018
The message included: “Die stupid fixer.” This after Barry Hawkins, earlier this year had been told to “get cancer” from online trolls.
Words: Lee Pearson I Subbed: Charlie Bradley