Swiss World Cup team hit by wave of hate comments online
Last week, FIFA said that racist comments during the World Cup have increased.
VANCOUVER - Swiss players are increasingly facing hateful comments on social media during the World Cup, the German Press Agency (dpa) reported.
"Unfortunately, we can now estimate when the risk of a surge in such despicable comments increases,” a team spokesman told the Keystone-SDA news agency.
"In this case, the comment sections on our channels are often proactively blocked."
After the 1-1 opening draw with Qatar, in particular, there were so many discriminatory messages that the comment function on the association’s social media channels had to be deactivated.
"Also because some of the comments were about the players’ skin colour or origin," the spokesman added.
As soon as comments meet a criminal threshold, the Swiss Football Association forwards them to law enforcement authorities.
Switzerland are still in the tournament and will face Colombia in the last 16 on Tuesday in Vancouver.
Last week, FIFA said that racist comments during the World Cup have increased.
Around 11 per cent of all online posts classified as abusive were racist in some way, it said.
That is an increase of three per cent compared with the same point at the last World Cup in Qatar in 2022.
Around 1,000 social media accounts have been reported to police.
Netherlands players Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber and Crysencio Summerville were subjected to racial abuse online after missing penalties in the round-of-32 defeat to Morocco.
The trio disabled the comment functions on their respective social media accounts.
The Dutch football association (KNVB) condemned the abuse and filed a complaint with the public prosecutor in the Netherlands. - BERNAMA-DPA
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