World Cup 2026: Concerning increase in racist social media posts

More than 100 instances exceeded legal thresholds for preparing case files for prosecution.

While detection methods are improving, SMPS said “data trends show a concerning trend direction for racially aggravated abuse.”

All Dutch players who missed penalties in the last 32 penalty shoot-out against Morocco on Monday were subjected to racist abuse.

The Royal Dutch Football Federation (KNVB) said that Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber and Crysencio Summerville were subjected to discriminatory, racist and hateful comments on social media.

More than six million posts and comments were scanned (up 33%) and 225,000 were determined to be reviewed by real people.

Nearly 1,000 accounts were identified for further investigation and 181,000 hateful comments were suppressed.