Tackling online abuse at Women’s EURO 2025: Insights from the tournament
Thursday, July 31, 2025
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Discrimination is never acceptable, whether in football or society, in person or online. During Women’s EURO 2025, UEFA ran a dedicated online abuse programme to monitor, report and remedy cases of online abuse in collaboration with Meta, TikTok and X.
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Launched at UEFA Women's EURO 2022, our online abuse monitoring programme covers all UEFA finals and final tournaments, including youth competitions.
During Women’s EURO 2025, the programme monitored 443 individuals, including players, coaches and referees. Ahead of the tournament, UEFA also provided teams and individuals with manuals on how to protect their accounts against unwanted and abusive content, combining a preventative approach with reactive structures.
Abusive content identified through the programme is recorded with the support of the programme partner, with the most aggressive content reported directly to social media platforms for action. After each match, national associations receive material related to any abusive content directed at their team, players or coaches.
To date, 66.6% of abusive posts reported that related to Women's EURO 2025 programme have been actioned on by the social media platforms. For all other abusive content, UEFA encourages teams and individuals to connect with their local law enforcement for action and possible remedy.
“While the action on the pitch is the heart of any football tournament, the digital space around it matters too.
Abuse directed at players, coaches, or referees has no place in the game, and we are working closely with social media platforms to make existing safeguards stronger, faster, and more effective.”
Tournament summary
- A total of 1,901 abusive posts were identified during the monitoring of Women's EURO 2025, with 359 posts (19.1%) eligible to be reported directly to the social media platforms for further action.
- 66.6% of those abusive posts were actioned by the platforms.
- The teams most affected were England, Spain and Germany.
- 67.3% of flagged posts were directed at individual players, 5.3% were directed at coaches, 25.6% targeted team accounts and 1.8% targeted referees.
The monitoring of Meta, TikTok and X has highlighted the types of abuse that players, coaches, officials and other accounts are being subjected to. Some 81.9% of flagged posts were reported for general abuse, which includes abuse that is not specifically targeted at a group or community. In addition, 13% featured sexist abuse, 3.9% presented racist abuse and 1.2% contained homophobic abuse.
Focus on the final
- A total of 468 posts were flagged for review during the Women’s EURO 2025 final, between England and Spain.
- These posts came from 365 individual accounts, with 145 posts (31%) eligible to be reported directly to the social media platforms for further action.
- The team most affected was Spain.
- 79.1% of flagged posts were directed at individual players, 7.5% at coaches and 3.6% at referees, while 9.8% targeted team accounts.
Comparison with UEFA Women’s EURO 2022
Comparing the above results with the outcomes from Women’s EURO 2022 in England, the key differences are:
- A 7.3% increase in the overall number of abusive posts.
- A reduction in the number of tier 1 posts, but an increase in the number of tier 2 and 3 posts.
- A significant decrease in sexism posts.
Tier 1 content includes abusive terminology directed at a certain group or community (racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, ableism, transphobia, etc.) as well as threats to the life and safety of individuals. This content is the most abusive and is immediately reported to the social media platforms.
Tier 2 content comprises offensive, harsh, hateful or strong language against individuals, teams and governing bodies.
Tier 3 content comprises disrespectful, rude, impolite descriptive language against individuals, governing bodies or the sport.
The work aiming to tackle online abuse in women’s football is carried out in partnership with VISA.
The impact of our monitoring programme
Women's EURO 2025 marks the end of an initial three-year cycle of investment in a platform to monitor, report and remedy cases of online abuse, covering 16 UEFA competitions.
19,535 posts identified
3,863 posts reported
261 matches
16 competitions
We strongly encourage everyone to join the fight against online abuse by reporting any abusive or discriminatory content to the respective social media platforms. Victims of online abuse or hate speech who are struggling with self-harm or suicidal thoughts should seek support from medical professionals. If online threats or comments cause fear for personal safety, contacting the police is advised.
Crucial collaboration with social media partners
UEFA values highly the fruitful collaboration with social media platforms to tackle online abuse. Together, we established an escalation channel before and throughout Women’s EURO 2025 to promptly report abusive content, with weekly meetings to assess cases.In agreement with our counterparts, we share further insights on the outcome of this collaboration.
We worked directly with Meta both before and during the tournament, who proactively removed a number of violating comments and took action against accounts that broke their policies. They helped prevent abusive comments by activating a number of features on both Facebook and Instagram to moderate comments and limit unwanted interactions across accounts, including features like Hidden Words, Limits, Restrict and Moderation Assist.
On Instagram, selected profiles were monitored and 91% of abusive posts reported to Meta for further action were removed.
X was able to expedite and effectively review hundreds of reports, removing and restricting reported posts that violated its rules in a timely manner. This was made possible due to an increase in both numbers of agents on staff during major live events, and investments in agent upskilling abilities.
On TikTok, selected profiles were monitored and 100% of abusive content identified was removed.
A cross-functional group of dedicated safety professionals was deployed to:
1. Develop a comprehensive preparedness plan to understand and mitigate issues that could occur during the tournament, and proactively safeguarding accounts before, during and after the tournament.
2. Strengthen moderation capabilities to respond to potentially hateful conduct.
3. Cooperate closely with relevant law enforcement agencies across Europe.