As England prepare for their next match against Slovakia at Euro 2024, Channel 4 News can exclusively reveal that since the tournament, the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) has received 571 referrals of online abuse towards England players, with 26 cases so far. results in the investigation. The majority are racist posts.
“Around 85 per cent of the most offensive posts we see are racist, followed by homophobia,” said Superintendent Mike Ankers, Lead Investigation at the UKFPU. Looking at the 12 posts currently under investigation, he said that “at least half of them will meet the threshold” for him to take action. “We’re still using the bad N-word. It’s going to be quite famous. We’re also going to get things like the monkey emoji, which itself is going to be very offensive. So we’re going to take action.
After the first match against Serbia, the UKFPU received 102 referrals of online abuse, and 12 are currently being investigated. 292 social media posts were called after the Denmark match, with three meeting the police threshold for investigation. And after England’s final group game against Slovenia, 177 posts were referred, and 11 are under investigation.
Regarding what the police will do, Ankers said: “We try to take a proportional approach. There is education, so the lower level, the first offenders, we will definitely try and go through the education program. What we see in 2022, which following on from the 2021 missed penalty of the three black players, is a change in the law, which means online hate abuse is a section one offense that allows us to apply for a banning order. for ten years, which means he can’t travel, can’t watch games.
After England lost to Italy in the last Euro final at Wembley in July 2021, a stream of online racist abuse was directed at the three players who missed penalties for England: Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka. 11 people were arrested.
That prompted calls to police and social media companies to do more. Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and Threads, says it has clear rules against hate speech and does not tolerate such applications. In a statement, he said: “Since 2016, we have invested more than $20 billion in safety and security and quadrupled the size of our global team working in this area to around 40,000 people. This includes 15,000 content reviewers who review content on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
The new Online Safety Bill will also mean that regulator Ofcom can hold social media platforms accountable for online abuse. But Tony Burnett, CEO of anti-racism at football campaign group Kick It Out, said there was still work to be done.
“This season we have seen a higher number of discrimination complaints than ever before, a record number. And the increase mainly comes from social media. I’m not saying the police are not doing anything. I’m not saying that social media organizations are not doing anything. But the players’ experience, and our experience working in this field, it’s still going up. And when it’s like that, we can’t be satisfied and say it’s enough to stop because it’s clearly not.
In response, Mike Ankers said, “I really understand why people would say that they (social media companies) are not done yet. But in my experience, I really like the work and the collaborative approach where companies have worked with the police, certainly at this time. So I think there are encouraging signs there.
The concern raised by Burnett and the police is that the longer England are in the tournament, the higher the stakes, and they fear that if the team loses, certain players will be blamed and may be blamed.
“I really hope that if we win the tournament, then we can talk differently. If the unfortunate thing happens, we fail, whoever is involved, I just hope that the social media organizations have learned from the experience (Euro 2021), have preventive measures are in place, and the UKFPU stands ready to prosecute anyone who commits such harassment again.”
In Germany itself, the UKFPU said the majority of England supporters were doing very well, with tens of thousands traveling there since the tournament began on June 14.
There are a number of problems ahead of England’s first match against Serbia on June 16 in Gelsenkirchen. The UKFPU said six England fans had been issued with football banning orders linked to the disorder. Three of those supporters have now missed domestic and England internationals for three years; the other three were banned for five years. UKFPU said it is still investigating others believed to be involved.
There were concerns ahead of the tournament over the rise of football harassment. According to Home Office figures, arrests at matches in England and Wales reached a nine-year high during the 2022-23 season, with 2,264 football-related arrests. Figures for the recent season are not yet available.
