During the FIFA World Cup 2026™, protective coverage was set up for 1,606 individuals:

Coverage spanned across the four major social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter):

Abusive, discriminatory or threatening content targeted 812 individuals at the FIFA World Cup 2026™, but two teams stood out as key targets – Argentina and England. Argentina was the most targeted national team, with over 40,800 abusive instances across the team and its players.

General Abuse was the largest category at 43%. This covers swear words and insults that do not target protected characteristics. With general abuse removed Racism accounted for 20% and the largest category of abuse.

Content was subject to moderation, monitoring or reporting where it included a reference – whether express or implied – to any one or more of the reasons listed by Article 4 of the FIFA Statutes, where the context may be reasonably concluded to be harmful.

Additionally, any content which may be deemed to include thread of harm to the subject or their family members was automatically included for assessment.

Where location could be inferred (26.2% of detected abuse), Europe accounted for 29.7%, South America 28.1% and North America 22.5%. Africa accounted for 10.2%, the Middle East 3.5%, Asia 2.6% and Oceania 0.5%. The United Kingdom (11.8%) and the United States (11.7%) were the top two countries.

The SMPS moderation tool reviewed 60.7 million comments on official FIFA and participating-nation channels. It hid 9.2 million (15%) before they could be seen, preventing an estimated 920 million exposures to spam, fraud and abusive comments. Despite the abuse detected, around four in five comments on official channels were positive. The tournament was also the most global conversation on official channels to date, with fans commenting in 120 languages.

The SMPS goes beyond reporting content. Investigators assessed 2,905 accounts as meeting the threshold for potential investigation and prioritised the 232 most severe. They completed 87 deep-dive investigations.

Beyond the numbers, the findings highlight the personal impact of online abuse on players, coaches, match officials and other team representatives, as well as their families. Those close to participants in the game may be targeted by individuals who direct abuse, thereby compounding the distress caused.

In addition, steps were taken during the FIFA World Cup 2026 to shield match officials from abhorrent and relentless cyberaggression. The SMPS intervened to defend officials from doxing, a malicious practice that shares private and personal information relating to an individual, inciting abuse from others.

Click here to read the full report.