MORE than half of footballers playing at the UEFA European Championship and Africa Cup of Nations suffered online abuse, showed a study published by FIFA yesterday.

Much of it comes from fans of the players’ home countries.

“Homophobic (40%) and racist (38%) comments provided the majority of the abuse,” said the independent report published to coincide with the United Nations International Day for Countering Hate Speech.

Using artificial intelligence to track more than 400,000 posts on social media platforms during the semi-finals and finals of UEFA Euro 2020 and 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, “more than 50% of players received some form of discriminatory abuse”.

FIFA said with the World Cup in Qatar just five months away, it will work with players union FIFPRO to implement a plan on how to protect players from abuse on social media.

This will involve scanning recognised hate speech terms published to identified social media accounts, and prevent those comments from being seen by the recipient and their followers once detected.

“Although the offending messages remain visible to the persons who originally made them, the reach and visibility will be significantly reduced,” said FIFA.

England’s Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho are all targeted online following their penalty misses in the UEFA Euro 2020 final, leading to widespread calls for a clampdown on racist abuse on social media.

One teenager was given a six-week jail sentence for racially abusing Rashford on Twitter after the loss to Italy.

“Our duty is to protect football. That starts with the players who bring so much joy and happiness to all of us by their exploits on the field of play,” said FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

“Unfortunately, there is a trend developing where a percentage of posts on social media channels directed towards coaches, players, match officials and the teams themselves… (this) is not acceptable.

“This form of discrimination – like any form of discrimination – has no place in football.” – AFP, June 19, 2022.