Published on 6/6/2026
The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) is preparing to expand the use of artificial intelligence during the 2026 World Cup, with the aim of reducing offensive messages to which players and teams are exposed to on social media platforms.
FIFA launched a service to protect participants on social media for the first time following the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
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According to the British “The Guardian”, FIFA has provided the supervision and monitoring feature of this service free of charge to all national federations participating in the 2026 edition, which begins next Thursday.
A number of national federations, including the English Football Association, have not yet decided their position on the offer.
It happened in the Premier League
Recently, Premier League clubs have increasingly used artificial intelligence to hide the racist content that players are exposed to on their social media accounts.
Among these clubs is Tottenham, which had previously condemned the “hateful and insulting racism” directed at its defender, Kevin Danso, after his mistake against Brighton last season.
This technology uses 30,000 keywords to classify offensive comments on the accounts of teams and players on social media sites, and hides them in less than two seconds.
The abuser will still be able to see their post, but will not know that it has been hidden and reported for further investigation. He may then be prohibited from purchasing match tickets for FIFA tournaments or at the club and local tournament levels.
The artificial intelligence technology works on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Threads, but it does not work on the X platform, which allows hidden comments to be displayed.
Partnership has reasons
Tottenham and its neighbor Arsenal had partnered with the company “Respondology”, which relies on artificial intelligence and cooperates with the well-known English Premier League campaign, “No Place for Racism”, with the aim of combating offensive comments on the two clubs’ digital platforms.
The Guardian says that the “Respondology” company was originally founded in the wake of a torrent of racist abuse targeting American tennis star Serena Williams when she posted a photo with her newborn on Facebook, during the US Open tennis tournament in 2019.
Later, the company, which has clients such as the American Football League (NFL), Nascar races and major brands, expanded to include football when the English national team players Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho were subjected to racist abuse after missing penalty kicks against Italy in the final of the European Championship (Euro 2020).
“We estimate that we have erased 1.5 billion impressions of hate content in the world of football, and this number is likely to be very conservative,” says Responseology co-founder and CEO Eric Swain.
Manchester United launched a code of conduct on social media in 2024, and Swayne believes that all Premier League clubs will follow suit in the coming months.
Regarding the “Gunners,” Swayne says: “Arsenal’s vision is that you can criticize the team, or express negative opinions about a player or coach, but they want to put a dividing line on the matter just as they determine what is allowed inside the stadium. If you chant racist chants inside the Emirates Stadium, you will be removed from it. We play this same role through Arsenal’s digital channels.”
Companies such as Meta and X (formerly Twitter) have not offered their own services to moderate content because they consider that they are platforms, not publishers, and that what people write is their personal responsibility. Therefore, these companies contented themselves with developing programming interfaces that allow other companies to connect with them and carry out this task on their behalf.
