Kevin Campbell on Karen Carney Instagram abuse and how he used to deal with hate mail

The horrific abuse sent to England and Chelsea star Karen Carney on Instagram after a Champions League tie with Fiorentina has brought the dangers of social media to the fore again.

Carney was subjected to vile messages after the game, something England manager Phil Neville was furious about and called on the site to address.

Technology makes it incredibly easy for people to hide behind online profiles and attack high profile figures, whether in sport or in other walks of life.

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It is not something that the websites appear to take too seriously either, given how quickly they remove footage of games that are illegal, compared with racist abuse on the websites.

But this abuse is not something new for footballers, Kevin Campbell’s career began in the late 1980s and ended in 2007.

He knows it is more difficult to deal with abuse when it’s constant and immediate, but also explained how he used to respond.

“It has been around for a long time,” Campbell told Yahoo Sport presents: The Football Show.

“It used to come in letter form and when it did that, you’d open the mail start reading the vileness and then you don’t read anymore.

“I used to use it as fuel. It fuelled me on the pitch and then at the end of every month, all the the cr*p that I received, I’d burn it to give me power.

“The problem with social media is the first thoughts [that] come to people’s heads, they’re Tweeting, texting, whatever and it’s out there. It’s hard to stop.

“Who can police it? When vileness can happen, people handle it differently. I hate to think what she is going through. It is shocking.”