FIFA’s Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) uncovered 89,000 abusive posts on social media during the group stage of the 2026 World Cup, marking a 13-fold increase compared to the 2022 tournament in Qatar [1, 2, 3, 4]. Over six million posts and comments were scanned, a 33% increase from 2022, reflecting the expanded tournament format, which grew from 32 to 48 teams [1, 2, 3, 4].

Racial abuse accounted for 11% of all detected offensive messages, a 3% rise from the previous edition, a troubling trend noted by analysts and officials. A BBC Sport report said, "The data trends show a concerning direction of travel in terms of racially aggravated abuse" [3].

SMPS uses a mix of automated technology and human moderation to identify, filter, and block racist, discriminatory, or threatening messages. Approximately 225,000 posts were flagged for human review, resulting in 89,000 verified abusive posts that prompted action [1, 2, 3, 4]. About 1,000 accounts were escalated for further investigation [1, 2, 3, 4]. FIFA stated, "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" [1].

Automated tools hid nearly 181,000 hateful comments originating from team accounts. More than two million comments, including spam and bot-generated posts, were moderated, which represents a fourfold increase from 2022 [1, 2, 4].

Following the last-32 shootout defeat to Morocco on August 3, Dutch players Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber, and Crysencio Summerville were targeted with racist abuse online [1, 2, 3, 4].

FIFA confirmed that over 100 abusive posts met the legal threshold to prepare case files against offenders, showing intent to pursue enforcement actions. "Over 100 examples have been identified which pass the legal thresholds for preparing legal case files against them," FIFA said [2].

FIFA first announced the rise in abuse during the group stage on July 1 [1, 2, 4]. Monitoring continues as investigations into escalated accounts proceed.