more of the half of the players who participated in the Euro 2020 finals (England-Italy) and the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations (Egypt-Senegal) were subject to insults through the networks social. This is revealed by a study published by the FIFA and carried out jointly between this organization and FIFPROthe world players union, and developed in the period of time between the conclusion of the semifinals of said tournaments and three days after the dispute of said finals.
The report, aided by artificial intelligence, tracked 406,987 twitter and instagram messages and concludes that the 55% of the players who participated in these finals were subject to insults.
The 40% of said insults were homophobes (the majority detected in the African tournament), 38% racistsand 6% Islamophobic (all of them in the framework of the Africa Cup), another 6% questioned the ability of the footballers, 3% were xenophobicanother 3% contained threats and the rest, all kinds of insulting comments.
Senegal beat Egypt in the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations final
The study reveals that black england players who missed their shots in the penalty shootout that decided the final were the main victims of said comments; in fact, racist comments accounted for 76% of the insults recorded in that scenario. And that in the Africa Cupthe technicians received more than twice as many insults than their European counterparts.
It is the case that both in one tournament and another, according to the report, the majority of insults came from the footballers’ nation of origin to whom they were addressed.
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Following this report, FIFA and FIFPRO have announced their intention to launch tools to protect players, technicians, referees, etc., of this type of insults. An attempt will be made to make fans aware of the need to moderate this type of action, while support will be offered to players and their families due to the repercussions that these messages may have on their performance, mental health and general well-being. These grants will be launched on the occasion of the 2022 Qatar Men’s World Cup and the Women’s World Cup, which will be played in Australia and New Zealand in 2023.