Sport

FIFA reveals World Cup team that faced most homophobic abuse after huge increase

Oct 16
Written by Jack Wetherill

There was a huge increase in abuse aimed at players in the 2026 World Cup (Getty Images)

France was targeted with the highest volumes of homophobia online during the 2026 men’s World Cup, according to a new FIFA Social Media Protection Service report.

In the published findings, the FIFA SMPS report said: “The French players were the most abused team across all platforms, with over 18,000 abusive instances.” It added: “Racism (33%) was the joint largest category alongside General Abuse. They were also the nation targeted with the highest volumes of Homophobia.”

FIFA’s Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) analysis said human analysts confirmed 240,000 messages were abusive, out of the more than 17.1million posts related to the tournament. They reported this was an 11-times increase compared with the men’s World Cup in Qatar in 2022.

A breakdown in the analysis said 20 per cent of posts included racial abuse, while seven per cent were homophobic.

The nature of the posts was described as “homophobic slurs and sexualised language often used to insult or taunt individuals”.

How did FIFA measure online abuse?

FIFA uses the SMPS to shield players from abuse, using AI software called “Threat Matrix” to filter out discrimination before it reaches recipients.

FIFA said the service also gathers material that could be used beyond moderation: “As part of the evolution of SMPS, the service also collates evidence for law enforcement and over 100 examples have been identified which pass the legal thresholds for preparing legal case files against them,” FIFA said.

What did the report say about the most targeted player?

The summary included one reference to an unnamed player, who “received over 10,000 instances of abuse”. The player was the leading target of “homophobia, sexism and transphobia”.

In 2023, close to 22 per cent of players monitored at the Women’s World Cup received hateful messages, with sexist, sexual and homophobic abuse making up almost half of detected abusive posts.