A study has shown that over 55 per cent of players who featured in the finals of Euro 2020 and this year s Africa Cup of Nations were abused online.
The independent report, released by FIFA five months prior to the start of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, identified that homophobic and racist comments were the two main areas of concern.
Over 400,000 social media posts were examined, spread across Twitter and Instagram, and 541 cases of direct discrimination or other forms of abuse were discovered.
The majority of hate comments were found to have originated from the home countries of targeted players, with 38 per cent having been made in the United Kingdom.
The study showed that 40 per cent of abusive messages contained homophobic content, and 38 per …