Red Card: FIFA: World Cup Participants Received 7M Abusive Postss
Saturday, July 18, 2026 at 05:09PM By Barry Janoff
July 18, 2026: The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup featured a record number of teams and broke records in attendance via games in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, as well as record TV viewership.
Unfortunately, it also set a record in the number of abusive messages targeting players, teams and others.
FIFA’s Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) — a digital shield available to all teams, coaches, players and officials participating in FIFA tournaments — said it has “kicked away more than 7 million potentially harmful posts and comments since the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026 June 11.”
That is a 14-times increase on the FIFA World Cup 2022, when 470,000 such posts and comments were removed.
FIFA has also “actioned and reported over 200,000 abusive and threatening posts and comments, compared to 19,600 at Qatar 2022.”
The service has moderated more than 53 million posts and comments since the tournament began.
"Football should bring people together, not divide them. Nobody should be subjected to abuse or threats simply for doing their job on the field,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said via the organization.
“We will continue using every tool available to protect those who make our sport possible,"
Across the FIFA World Cup 2026, the FIFA SMPS has “reviewed and assessed more than half a million AI-detected messages targeted at players, coaches and officials. Over 15,000 of these have been escalated for additional action, and more than 1,000 egregious threats have been passed to the relevant authorities, including Law Enforcement.”
Earlier this month, FIFA said racial abuse accounted for 11% of detected offensive messages during the World Cup to date.
Prior to the 2026 Men’s World Cup, FIFA said it continued its efforts to counter hate speech in football, with this year’s No Racism campaign zeroing in on raising awareness around racial and discriminatory abuse.
With the key call to action “Listen, Stand Up, Show Up”, the campaign encouraged fans and players to listen to the stories of those targeted, to act when abuse occurs, and to remain active allies in the fight against racism.
FIFA said there were 1 billion views for “No Racism” content on social media and 8.5 million people were reached with the “No Racism” messaging at FIFA Fan Festivals.
The Global Stand Against Racism is FIFA’s worldwide initiative to combat all forms of racism in football through a zero-tolerance approach. It includes such stars as Lionel Messi.
Unanimously approved by FIFA’s 211 Member Associations at the 74th FIFA Congress in May 2024, the Global Stand Against Racism has five key action areas designs to end racism in football.
• We will make racism a specific offense with mandatory inclusion in the individual disciplinary codes of all 211 FIFA Member Associations, giving acts of racism their own specific and severe sanctions.
• We will make racism a specific offense with mandatory inclusion in the individual disciplinary codes of all 211 FIFA Member Associations, giving acts of racism their own specific and severe sanctions.
• We will push for the recognition of racism as a criminal offense in every country in the world, and where already an offense, will push for prosecution with the severity it deserves.
• We, in recognition that no child is born a racist, will develop and promote educational initiatives together with schools and governments, to provide a future free of racism.
• We will establish a new Players’ Anti-Racism Panel composed of former players who will monitor and advise on the implementation of these actions around the world.
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