FIFA reports surge in racist abuse during World Cup group stage

FIFA’s Social Media Protection Service scanned more than 6 million posts and comments during the World Cup 2026 group stage, sending 225,000 for human review and verifying 89,000 as abusive. The system also hid about 181,000 hateful comments and escalated around 1,000 accounts for further investigation, while more than 100 examples met the legal threshold for preparing case files for law enforcement.

Racial abuse accounted for 11% of all detected offensive messages, a 3% rise from the equivalent stage of Qatar 2022. The scale of abuse it identified was 13 times higher than in 2022, when 6,700 abusive comments were detected. The 2022 group stage involved 32 teams, while the 2026 format has 48.

The monitoring system is built to find, flag and remove content quickly, but only a small share of the material reviewed crossed into the slower law-enforcement track. The abuse cases it identified were not just hidden or removed inside its moderation system; in some instances, they were assembled into files for police action.

The Social Media Protection Service has been in place since 2022 and is available to all teams, players, coaches and match officials at FIFA tournaments. Since the service launched, FIFA has reported more than 65,000 abusive posts, 11 individuals to global law enforcement authorities, and one case to Interpol. FIFA has blacklisted individuals responsible for highly abusive behavior.

Gianni Infantino said "abuse has no place in football" and FIFA would work with member associations, confederations and law enforcement to hold offenders accountable.