Maurizio Sarri slams 'disgusting' abuse of Karen Carney

Maurizio Sarri has joined Phil Neville and the Football Association in condemning the social media abuse directed towards Karen Carney.

The FA on Thursday called on the police and social media companies to help shut down online abuse after Chelsea Women captain Carney was subjected to sickening threats.

Carney scored the decisive penalty in Chelsea's Women's win over Fiorentina in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday.

When asked about the issue at Friday's press conference, Sarri said: "First of all I saw the last match against Fiorentina. She is a very good midfielder.

"About the situation, what can I say? It is not acceptable. It's disgusting."

It is not acceptable. It's disgusting.

Sky Sports News understands Carney won't be contacting the police over the threats but the FA have called on the police to tackle the issue.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Sky Sports News it "takes allegations of threatening and abusive behaviour very seriously and encourages any victims of such crimes to contact police so that an investigation can be conducted".

It was Neville who highlighted the abuse 133-cap international Carney had received, sharing an Instagram post which wished "cancer, leukaemia and rape" on her.

He shared a further post on Friday directed towards an unnamed England Women international, which included a rape threat and a follow-up message suggesting it was "headline" grabbing.

Neville wrote on Thursday: "A message sent to one of my @lionesses players last night, absolutely disgraceful". He went on to ask Instagram: "Are you going to do something about it?"

He added on Friday: "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 is backing Neville and has demanded action.

"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."

Instagram removed the account responsible for the first messages as the company does not "tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour".

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