FIFA says abusive social media posts are 13 times higher during the group stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup compared to the 2022 tournament.
The spike was found after FIFA’s social media protection program scanned more than six million posts and comments uploaded that related to the World Cup, a 33 per cent jump from 2022.
FIFA said the artificial intelligence tool had flagged 225,000 posts and comments for human review, with 89,000 being identified as abusive. FIFA also says 11 per cent of those were racially motivated.
In 2022, 6,700 abusive comments were identified.
FIFA also added that the social media scanning program “collates evidence for law enforcement, with over 100 examples having been identified which pass the legal thresholds for preparing legal case files against them from the 2026 group stage.”
Officials say the system identified 1,000 accounts for further investigation and said they hid 181,000 hateful comments.
Following the Netherlands’ elimination from the tournament Monday night, the Dutch football association (KNVB) stated that the players who missed penalties in the team’s defeat to Morocco were subjected to racist and discriminatory abuse online.
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Midfielders Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber and winger Crysencio Summerville all missed in the shootout as Morocco took the win.
The KNVB condemned this in a statement posted to Instagram.
“We have seen the online reactions in which players have been subjected to racist and discriminatory abuse following the team’s elimination,” the statement reads. “We draw a clear line against such behaviour. Racism and discrimination have no place in football, online, or in our society.”
Ahead of this year’s World Cup, FIFA implemented the “No Racism Gesture” into tournament rules, where players can “cross their hands at the wrists” to “signal directly to the referee that they are being targeted by racist abuse” by spectators.
The referee then must decide whether or not to stop the match and if the incident does not stop, the match will be suspended.
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