The Manchester United Women manager, Casey Stoney, has condemned attacks on her forward Lauren James but has said that players should not abandon social media platforms because of the abuse.
Stoney also revealed that she had been the subject of abuse because of her sexuality, but said that ceding social media space to trolls would mean “you lose your voice”.
“I’ve spoken to her. I speak to her every day when she’s here and when she’s not here,” Stoney said. James is one of several high-profile footballers to be targeted with racist abuse in recent weeks. She did not play in United’s WSL loss to Reading on Sunday because of an injury.
Stoney highlighted the 19-year-old’s age: “She’s a very young person living away from home. It’s hard for me to comprehend sitting here as a white person in terms of actually being able to understand what she lives through every single day, what she’s experiencing. It’s disgusting, it’s utterly disgusting.
“When a player comes to me and says it’s kind of water off a duck’s back, that is gut-wrenching for me that she has to face that. I just cannot get my head around it all and it does upset me quite a lot.
“As a club we can support her. In terms of boycotting [social media], you lose your voice. As a club we always look into ways where we can campaign against these things. We have to wrap our arms around her but also stand next to her.”
Stoney joined the ranks of football’s leaders in calling on government to force social media companies to take action against abusive users. She also spoke of her own traumatic experiences as an individual in the game.
She said: “I think the government and the powers that be need to do so much more to govern these social media platforms and we need to stand up, speak up and make it unacceptable that this happens.
“Discrimination in any form is absolutely unacceptable. I have been told I’m an abomination and should never have been born. I have been sent things through the post that weren’t very nice just because I love another human being.”
