Published : 09 Oct 2026, 05:15 PM
Updated : 09 Oct 2026, 05:15 PM
More than half of the 1,606 players, coaches and officials monitored by FIFA’s Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) at the 2026 World Cup received online abuse, FIFA said on Friday.
• 812 of the 1,606 individuals monitored received at least one message classified as abusive.
• Racism was the most common form of discriminatory abuse, accounting for 12 percent of all abuse and 20 percent once general abuse is excluded.
• The most targeted individual received more than 10,000 abusive posts, 40 percent of them racist.
• The SMPS analysed 17.1 million posts and comments, of which about 240,000 were verified as abusive after human review.
• 2,905 accounts were escalated for investigation and 786 were referred to law enforcement for review.
• The moderation tool scanned 60.7 million comments on official FIFA and member association channels and hid 9.2 million, including spam.
