Seven police probes launched into abusive online content during Euro 2022

A total of 189 posts across social media were tagged for review during the contest between England and Germany. Picture: Danny Lawson

Uefa has confirmed that seven police investigations into abusive online content across Euro 2022 are now open.

All of the data from Uefa's dedicated reporting platform, launched at the start of the competition, was shared with English authorities.

The governing body also revealed that more than half of the flagged posts during  Sunday's final were classified as hate speech.

A total of 189 posts across social media were tagged for review during the contest between England and Germany, 119 of which, said a Uefa report, "were eligible to be reported directly to the social media platforms for removal".

"To facilitate access to remedy, all the data has been shared with the English police, with seven investigations currently open," read the statement, which promised to "scale up the monitoring efforts across all women competitions' final matches for the next three years".

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"The actions around online abuse will continue after the final whistle at Wembley. Uefa will build on the lessons of the past month to concentrate on all of its final competitions, including youth, women's and men's finals matches."

Hate speech accounted for 51% of the flagged content in the final, while 45% was classed as sexist. Racist and homophobic posts comprised 2% each.

The majority of Sunday's abusive content, 58%, was directed at teams, while 19% was directed at competition and competition-related accounts.

The majority of Sunday's abusive content, 58%, was directed at teams, while 19% was directed at competition and competition-related accounts. Picture: James Warwick

Referees were the targets of 12% of the flagged posts, while individual players were at the receiving end of 10% and coaches 1% of the hateful content.

A total of 60% of flagged content, said Uefa, has already been removed since the beginning of Euro 2022.

The details emerged a day after study results showed more than 300 abusive tweets are sent to Premier League  footballers every day and nearly seven in 10 players receive abuse on Twitter.

The study said Manchester United stars dominate the list of the 10 most abused players on the platform, led by Cristiano Ronaldo, Harry Maguire and Marcus Rashford, although the squad that receives the highest proportion of abusive tweets overall is Tottenham Hotspur.

The findings were released by the British communications regulator Ofcom, ahead of the start of the new Premier League season this week.

The report defined an abusive tweet as a message that “threatens, insults, derogates, dehumanises, mocks or belittles a player”, including “slurs, negative stereotypes, excessive use of profanities and angry emoji”.

It found that 60,000 abusive tweets were directed towards Premier League players in the first half of the season, an average of 362 every day. 

The report found that 12 players accounted for 50% of all abusive tweets, with Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire in the top two slots. 

In total, eight out of 10 of the most abused footballers on Twitter in the Premier League were Manchester United players, along with Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Manchester City’s Jack Grealish.