Gillingham player the victim of online abuse as Crawley Town condemns ‘all forms of personal abuse and threats’

Crawley Town have issued a statement following “certain threats and abuse” directed towards a Gillingham player.

The Gills beat Crawley 1-0 on Saturday and the following day the West Sussex club issued a statement following reports of online abuse, apparently directed towards their former player Ashley Nadesan.

More: Gills were poor in Crawley win – Harris

Nadesan and Tom Nichols both played for the Gills at the weekend, having joined the Kent side from their League 2 rivals.

Nichols joined midway through last season and has been reunited with his old strike partner when Nadesan made the move to Priestfield this summer.

A Crawley statement said: “Overnight Crawley Town Football Club have been made aware of certain threats and abuse made to a former player following yesterday afternoon's fixture against Gillingham.

“Crawley Town Football Club strongly condemns all forms of personal abuse and threats directed towards players and their families as well as any other club individual.

“This type of behaviour has no place in our game.

“The individuals making these threats do not represent our fan base and will no longer be welcome at the Broadfield Stadium.”

Saturday’s game was played without too much trouble but there was a post-match scuffle between players and management, which the Gills boss Neil Harris put down to “sour grapes”, describing the incident as “just handbags.”

Assistant boss David Livermore picked up a booking during the incident, his second of the season. Under the new technical area misconduct charter, introduced this season, three bookings earns a non-playing member of the club a one-match touchline suspension.