A 13-fold increase in abusive social media posts directed towards World Cup participants compared to the last tournament four years ago has been identified by football’s world governing body FIFA.
The Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) operated by FIFA has shielded players from 89,000 posts verified as abusive during the opening round of the tournament. At the same stage of the 2022 finals in Qatar, 6,700 posts had been identified, FIFA said.
Even allowing for the tournament featuring 48 teams this time compared to 32 four years ago, the statistics are still alarming, and FIFA said as a result of the 89,000 posts it had identified, approximately 1,000 accounts had been escalated for further investigation.
FIFA said 11% of the 89,000 abusive posts were racially motivated. Artificial intelligence flagged 225,000 for human review, out of which the 89,000 were identified as abusive.
SMPS also collates evidence for law enforcement and FIFA said over 100 examples have been identified which pass the legal thresholds for preparing legal case files against them from the 2026 group stage.
In all, FIFA said 2,028,214 comments had been hidden by moderation during the 2026 group stage – a 400 per cent increase on the same point in the 2022 finals.
SMPS is available to all teams, players, coaches and match officials at the tournament, protecting them and their followers from discriminatory and offensive content.
