The Premier League, alongside its clubs, is committed to tackling racist abuse.
Ahead of a dedicated No Room For Racism match round across this weekend’s fixtures, the League and clubs are reiterating the message that discrimination will not be tolerated and that abuse has consequences.
Discriminatory abuse is appalling, and the League and clubs will continue to do everything in their power to stop it – wherever it happens.
The League’s team of experts was established in 2019 to monitor and investigate online racist abuse. They work to identify and locate abusers, who can face custodial sentences, football banning orders, criminal records, fines, community orders or police-mandated educational programmes.
Racist abuse has consequences, including:
- An individual was given a 20-week suspended custodial sentence, a three-month curfew, a three-year ban from football and ordered to pay costs after racially abusing a player online
- An individual in Germany was convicted and sentenced to a fine of more than €1,000 after posting online racial abuse
- An individual was handed a suspended custodial sentence and a three-year football ban after sending online racial abuse
Here, we explain how the League’s team continued to identify, investigate and remove online abuse.
How is the Premier League set up to address the issue?
There is a multi-disciplinary team dedicated to tackling online discriminatory abuse. This includes online monitoring for abusive content, investigating abusers, collaborating with social media platforms, supporting those that receive abuse and working closely with specialist lawyers who pursue legal actions against abusers, both domestically and internationally.
What does a typical working day look like for the team?
A typical day involves analysing the results of the monitoring and reviewing flagged content that comes in via the dedicated abuse-reporting system. Once abuse is found or the team are alerted to it, the team investigate the abuser to try and identify them using specialist investigators and then assess what action can be taken. They are constantly liaising with social media companies to discuss removal of abuse and review tools that can be used to protect players and online users.
What’s the scale of the problem we’re facing? How has that changed?
Since 2020, thousands of posts have been reported for removal and over 4,000 cases of online discriminatory abuse have been investigated. While there has been a recent decrease in the number of open racist comments and a decline in abusive direct messages being found and reported, sadly abuse remains a regular issue.
Each week can be different. The team base their monitoring around key incidents and events. Some weeks they pick up very little activity, but others there may be a spike, and abuse can intensify around high-profile moments. The team remain vigilant around key events, like a derby match.
We have also seen abuse change from just being text, to images, video, and AI-generated content.
This is a real global issue. Approximately 80 to 90 per cent of abuse originates from overseas
What can social media companies do to reduce the abuse?
While collaboration has improved over the years, the League continues to push for better proactive blocking of abusive content, faster removals of flagged content and for protection tools that are available to be set as default for all users and not just on an opt-in basis.
Are the team always monitoring for abuse or do players come to the team?
The Premier League proactively monitors platforms and operates a dedicated central online reporting system which was launched in 2020.
The League’s proactive monitoring is complemented by direct reports from players, managers, officials, families and clubs via the League's reporting system. If one of these figures reports abuse to the League, the League makes it a priority to review and support them throughout its investigation and review processes.
How sophisticated is the technology being used?
The League uses a combination of manual and automated (including AI) and filtering systems to detect and remove abusive content. These tools are constantly evolving to keep up with all forms of abuse that we are detecting across social media platforms.
Does this support only extend to men’s players in the Premier League?
No. The support system is available to players in the League, Academies, managers, match officials, and their families across the Premier League. The team also support women’s players and work closely with other football leagues and federations.
We urge anyone who witnesses racist abuse to report it. At a match, find the nearest steward or police officer, or use clubs’ confidential text services. Online abuse can be reported directly to the site or platform where it was posted or via the Premier League online.