Women's World Cup: FIFA finds one in five players sent homophobic, sexist or sexual social media abuse during tournament
Women's World Cup players found to be 29 per cent more likely to have received abuse during tournament than men during Qatar World Cup in 2022; One in five players received abuse, with over half of comments of a sexual, homophobic or sexist nature
Monday 11 December 2023 20:24, UK
One in five players at this year's Women's World Cup were the targets of online abuse, FIFA has found — with more than half of comments sexual, homophobic or sexist.
New data published by FIFA, identified by its Social Media Protection Service (SMPS), found 152 players out of 697 whose social media accounts were actively monitored received targeted discriminatory, abusive or threatening messaging during the finals.
Players at the finals in Australia and New Zealand were found to be 29 per cent more likely to be targeted for online abuse than their counterparts at the men's finals in Qatar.
Players at the finals were given the opportunity to opt in to the SMPS moderation service, which can intercept and hide abusive messages from view.
SMPS scanned more than five million social posts in total, with 102,511 posts flagged by AI for human review. Of those, 7,085 were subsequently verified as discriminatory, abusive or threatening and reported to platforms.
While United States and Argentina players suffered the highest volume of abuse, the FIFA data found there were 637 verified instances of abuse linked to the final between England and Spain.
The study found spikes in abusive posts and messages linked to the news that members of Britain's Royal Family would not attend the match, and to a good luck message from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The conduct of Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales following the final created a significant spike in abusive and
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