Karen Carney deletes Twitter account after receiving abuse for a valid football opinion
Former 144-cap England winger Karen Carney has deleted her Twitter account after receiving vile abuse for merely doing her job as a football pundit earlier this week.
After expressing an opinion (and a valid one, at that) about Leeds United during the broadcast of their recent Premier League clash with West Brom, the club's official Twitter account shared a short video clip of the coverage.
It featured Carney discussing whether Leeds may have had an unexpected benefit from the enforced hiatus of the 2019/20 season brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, helping seal their promotion from the Championship.
Leeds had won five in a row before the lockdown ceased all football in England for several months and, after a minor blip to begin ‘Project Restart’, later went on to win their final six games to finish top of the Championship by 10 points.
That was in stark contrast to the previous season when Leeds, having been top of the table until January, ran out of steam in the second half of the campaign – a known Achilles heel of some Marcelo Bielsa teams because of the high physical demands the manager typically expects.
Leeds failed to win any of their final four games in 2018/19 and slipped out of the automatic promotion places, before getting knocked out of the playoffs by Derby. Whether correct or not, Carney was well within her rights to raise the issue about fatigue and the benefit of rest.
But by sharing the clip, originally uploaded by a Leeds fan account, with dismissive captions, Leeds invited a Twitter pile-on of the worst order.
Fans trying to defend the club insisted that Carney wasn’t directly named or tagged. Doesn’t matter. People knew who she was and could easily find her to direct their vitriol.
Others also pointed out that Leeds have called out other pundits before now. Doesn’t matter. The club, in a position of social responsibility, should be aware that the automatic response to women in football from all too many knuckle draggers is sadly one of abuse, sexism and misogyny. They should not have put Carney in that position because the retaliation is far worse for a female.
Some have said Leeds can’t be held responsible for the behaviour of their fans. Doesn’t matter. Carney may have been subjected to some abuse anyway because her comments and the clip were already circling online, but Leeds poured petrol on the bonfire by effectively legitimising it.
That was made far worse still when owner Andrea Radrizzani doubled down and endorsed it. Radrizzani later apologised using talkSPORT host Jim White as a mouthpiece to condemn the abuse Carney was receiving, but the damage was already done.
Leeds made a statement the afternoon after the original tweet, having watched the fire burn overnight and all morning, that amounted to pouring a small cup of water on, shrugging and walking away. The club said they ‘completely condemn’ the abuse aimed at Carney for doing her job (doing her job well), but still did not apologise for the tweet that actively caused it, or take it down.
Even now, it still hasn’t been removed.
The abuse has left Carney with no choice but to remove herself from social media.
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