UEFA starts programme to hunt and destroy on-line racist content

July 4 – UEFA is launching a programme to combat online racist abuse of players by working with social media companies to remove harmful content from platforms.

The programme, which will start at the July 6-31 Women’s European Championship, will work to “actively monitor, report and remedy” cases of online abuse.

England’s Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were the targets of online racist abuse after they missed penalties in a 3-2 shootout loss to Italy in last year’s men’s European Championship final.

A report published by FIFA last month revealed that more than half of players at the Euros and Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) were subjected to discriminatory abuse online.

“The respect programme targets concrete actions to prevent abusive online behaviour and discrimination during all of its final competitions, including youth, women’s and men’s competition final matches for the next three years,” UEFA said.

“To ensure that harmful content is removed, UEFA is working directly with major social media platforms such as Twitter, Meta (Instagram and Facebook) and TikTok.”

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