FIFA reveals which World Cup team faced the most homophobia online
A FIFA report of World Cup teams and players targeted by hate and homophobia on social media reveals one nation felt the biggest brunt.
Mark
The France national team was targeted with more homophobia on social media than any other at the World Cup, according to a new FIFA report.
World soccer’s governing body uses the Social Media Protection Service (SMPS) to shield players from abuse, employing AI software called “Threat Matrix” to filter out discrimination before it reaches its intended recipients.
In a summary of analysis following the first-ever 48-team men’s World Cup held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the SMPS says human analysts confirmed 240,000 messages as being abusive out of more than 17.1 million posts in total related to the tournament.
This represented an 11-fold increase on the last men’s World Cup held in Qatar in 2022.
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20 per cent of the posts were identified as carrying racial abuse, with those marked as homophobic at 7 per cent.
These figures are reflected in a pie chart in the report, which omits “General Abuse” and states that homophobia was one of the “prominent forms” of discrimination detected during the tournament.
The nature of the posts is given as “homophobic slurs and sexualised language often used to insult or taunt individuals.”
While runners-up Argentina were the most targeted national team overall, a significant amount of those posts and messages consisted of corruption allegations. “Users repeatedly claimed Argentina was favoured by FIFA, Match Officials and VAR,” said the report.
However, when it came to discrimination, it was France — captained by Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappe, the World Cup’s leading goalscorer — who topped a bar chart titled “Total Abuse of Individuals By Team.”
The report says: “The French players were the most abused team across all platforms, with over 18,000 abusive instances.
“Racism (33%) was the joint largest category alongside General Abuse. They were also the nation targeted with the highest volumes of Homophobia.”
Gay slurs sent to several World Cup teams on social media
The same chart indicates that World Cup winners Spain were also targeted with homophobia online, while to a lesser extent, Portugal, England, Brazil and Norway also featured in the published data for this type of discrimination.
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Publishing the data, FIFA said efforts had been made for the relevant authorities to take appropriate action where possible.
“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,” the governing body said in a statement.
– 17 million posts scanned – 477,000 referred for review – 240,000 verified as abusive On the eve of World Mental Health Day, FIFA shares Social Media Protection Service findings relating to this year’s @FIFAWorldCup. https://t.co/FMv2ABtg6K— FIFA (@FIFAcom) October 9, 2026
There is only one reference to an individual player in the report, although that player is not named. A passage in the Executive Summary says: “The most targeted individual, a player, received over 10,000 instances of abuse.
“Racism made up 40% of it, and the player was also the leading target of Homophobia, Sexism and Transphobia. Targeting rose sharply after a public figure’s racist remarks about the player were shared widely.”
This could be an allusion to the appalling comments made by Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla after their team was beaten 1-0 by France in the round of 16.
Mbappe’s 70th-minute penalty settled a bad-tempered affair in Philadelphia, and Amarilla subsequently made a series of racist comments about the French team captain on X.
It was reported last month that the Real Madrid star’s camp was still considering new legal avenues, as the politician has a degree of parliamentary immunity which could see her avoid punishment in France.
In July 2024, FIFA announced an investigation into a video that showed Argentina national-team players taking part in discriminatory chants and songs that targeted Mbappe with transphobia following their Copa America victory.
However, there has never been a public announcement about the result of that investigation, and no Argentina player was ever handed a punishment by FIFA or CONMEBOL, the South American confederation.
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