FIFA’s SMPS (Social Media Protection Service) announced this Wednesday (1st) that it had identified 89,000 offensive publications during the group stage of the 2026 World Cup, of which 11% were of a racist nature.
The entity claims in a statement to have “analyzed more than 6 million publications and comments” online, that is, 33% more than in the 2022 edition in the same phase, which allowed it to “hide 181 thousand offensive comments” and open “exhaustive investigations” into a thousand users.
“Racist offenses are on the rise and have become a persistent threat to the well-being of players,” reported the SMPS.
This service was launched in 2022 and is “available to all national teams, as well as to all players, coaches and match referees participating in competitions organized by FIFA.”
According to the body that governs world football, “racist attacks represent 11% of offensive messages and constitute the most important category among insulting comments” since the beginning of the tournament organized in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
After 72 of the 104 matches scheduled in American stadiums, FIFA has already registered “13 times more” insulting publications than during the group stage of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (89 thousand against 6,700), in which, however, there were only 32 teams in dispute, compared to 48 this year.
The phenomenon of online hate continued at the start of the knockout phase: on Monday, Dutch players Crysencio Summerville, Justin Kluivert and Quinten Timber were the target of racist insults on social media after missing their penalty shots in the Netherlands’ defeat to Morocco in the 32-team World Cup stage, according to the Dutch federation.
