Fighting online abuse at UEFA EURO 2024: First observations from the group stage

UEFA believes we all play a role in ensuring football is inclusive for all.

In the online space, UEFA has developed an online abuse programme to monitor, report and remedy incidents occurring at all UEFA finals and final tournaments, including youth categories. The programme, which was launched at EURO Women’s 2022, will run until EURO Women’s 2025 in Switzerland.

During UEFA EURO 2024 in Germany, the program is actively monitoring 622 social media platforms and accounts of everyone involved in the tournament. This includes accounts of players, coaches and participating national teams.

“As part of our Environmental, Social and Governance Strategy for the tournament, we believe it is crucial to protect and support players, coaches and referees in dealing with their exposure to online abuse. They should be able to focus on their achievements on the pitch and not be burdened by unacceptable abuse directed at them online. We thank our social media platform partners for their proactive approach and look forward to continuing to work with them.”

Michele Uva, UEFA Director of Social and Environmental Sustainability

With the group stage now over, here is a first interim summary:

A total of 4,656 posts on social media platforms were marked for review in the group phase. These posts came from 4,070 individual accounts. Of these, 308 (7%) posts were eligible for reporting directly to social media platforms for further action.

Platforms responded to 71% of these offensive posts.

Reported posts were deleted immediately, after an average of 75 minutes.

So far, the hardest-hit teams have been Belgium, Croatia, Ukraine and the Netherlands.

74% of reported posts were about specific players, 15% about coaches, 7% about team accounts, and 4% about referees.

Targets of reported abuse (%)

Monitoring of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter during the group stage highlighted the types of abuse experienced by players, coaches, officials and other accounts.

Some 94% of flagged posts involved generalized abuse, which includes abuse that is not directed specifically at a group or community. Additionally, 4.5% contained racist abuse, and 1.5% contained homophobic abuse.

Types of reported abuse (%)

After each match, the results are made available to the national associations of the teams taking part in the match, allowing them to take further action by reporting offensive content to German law enforcement authorities.

The online abuse program will continue throughout the next stages of UEFA EURO 2024 and a full report will be made available at the end of the tournament.

We strongly encourage everyone to join the fight against online abuse by reporting any offensive or discriminatory content on the appropriate social media platforms. Victims of online abuse or hate speech who are struggling with self-harm or suicidal thoughts should seek help from a medical professional. If threats or comments online are causing fear for personal safety, it is recommended to contact the police.