Almost 2,000 abusive messages were sent to Jadon Sancho, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling on Twitter during Euro 2020, analysis by the Professional Footballers’ Association has revealed.
Sancho, Rashford and Saka missed penalties in England’s Euro 2020 final shootout defeat to Italy at Wembley on Sunday night and were subsequently subjected to a torrent of abuse across social media platforms, much of it racist.
The PFA has partnered with data science company Signify to monitor, analyse and report abusive social media posts directed at footballers, either to their club or, if they display illegality, to the authorities.
Sterling joined the trio as the England players most targeted by abuse, despite not taking a penalty in the shootout and ending Euro 2020 in Uefa’s team of the tournament.
Signify analysed around 850,000 posts on the social media platform relating to Euro 2020 and found that 1,913 directed at those four players were “potentially abusive”, with 167 of those “high risk” abuse.
“Our preliminary analysis suggests the volume of abuse flagged around yesterday’s Euro 2020 final, aimed mainly at Jadon Sancho, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling, was higher than the rest of the tournament combined,” the PFA said in a release. “The PFA and Signify are currently analysing data from the 2020-2021 season. In August, we will publish findings alongside potential solutions and recommendations.
The abusive response to England’s defeat on Sunday night – despite the players reaching the country’s first major tournament final in 55 years – coupled with the violent unrest outside and inside Wembley as hundreds of supporters without tickets stormed the stadium, provided an unpleasant end to the national team’s brilliant run.
The PFA and Signify will continue to analyse social media posts across football and intend to publish “potential solutions and recommendations”. They are wary, however, that previous reporting of abuse has resulted only in deleted posts and not in the suspension of users.
The release added: “Threat Matrix has analysed around 10million posts, verifying thousands of examples of abusive posts, reporting them to Twitter, along with the authors’ account handles.
“Further to this, there has been real-world action taken against abusive accounts. Users posting abusive messages from an account displaying a club affiliation have been reported to the relevant club for possible sanctions.
“In addition, where the gravity of abuse passes the threshold needed to prosecute for hate crimes, we have provided detailed evidence to the UK Football Policing Unit and CPS.”
More from i on Euro 2020
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- Fish & chips to fashion tips: What Southgate’s tweets tell us about the England boss
- Why there have been so many own goals – from tiredness to lazy defending
- We need to talk about Jordan Pickford – the unsung hero of this England team
- How to watch every Euro 2020 match on TV and online in the UK
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3B1BRjd
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