FIFA identifies 13-fold rise in abusive social media posts during the World Cup
It comes as three Dutch players reported being racially abused after missing penalties in their country's defeat to Morocco
FIFA watchdogs uncovered 89,000 posts on social media during the World Cup group stage, a 13 times as many from the 2022 tournament.
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The spike reflected a 33% jump from the Qatar edition four years ago, after the governing body's Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) scanned over six million posts and comments,
Racial abuse accounted for 11% of all detected offensive messages, which marked a three per cent rise compared to the 2022 group stage.
FIFA said it marked a "significant increase in the objectively worst, most offensive material" on social media platforms".
Read more: Who has qualified for the last 16 of the World Cup?
🚨🇳🇱 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: Justin Kluivert, Crysencio Summerville and Quinten Timber have turned off the comments on their Instagram posts after receiving racist abuse for missing their penalties. pic.twitter.com/v502xXIyLX
— The Touchline | 𝐓 (@TouchlineX) July 1, 2026
The SMPS uses both technology and human moderation to detect, filter and block any messages deemed racist, discriminatory or threatening, while also protecting players' followers from exposure to abusive content.
FIFA said in its statement: "Available to all teams, players, coaches and match officials participating at FIFA tournaments, SMPS protects them and their followers from experiencing discriminatory and offensive content."
It said that 225,000 posts were identified for human review, of which moderators verified 89,000 posts as abusive and took action.
Approximately 1,000 accounts escalated for further investigation.
The service's automated moderation tools also hid approximately 181,000 hateful comments from team accounts.
However, FIFA added that the expansion of the tournament from 32 teams to 48 played a contributing role in the rise.
Its spokesperson said: "As part of the evolution of SMPS, the service also collates evidence for law enforcement," FIFA said.
"Over 100 examples have been identified which pass the legal thresholds for preparing legal case files against them."