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Apart from the French team
The Spanish Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia monitored hate messages on social media during the last World Cup, mainly aimed at French national team players and Spanish star Lamin Yamal.
Spain’s Ministry of Integration, Social Security and Immigration announced in an official statement yesterday, Monday, that 52% of hate messages observed between June 11 and July 21 last year were directly related to a major sporting event held during that period, reflecting the extent of the polarization and hostility of the competition.
The Observatory highlighted the amount of hostile content directed at Yamal, a Spanish-Moroccan player’s father, and Equatorial Guinean player’s mother, as he was subjected to discriminatory comments related to his origin and identity, while the French national team was targeted due to the number of players of foreign origin or descent, due to organized racist attacks on social media.
The Spain-Argentina World Cup final saw a dangerous spike in hate speech, as although attacks against the US Hispanic population accounted for 15% of the total, they significantly increased during the game, reflecting the association of verbal violence with major sporting events.
The main target group, with 66% of messages, were North Africans, particularly regarding the Moroccan national team, while 13% of reported content was anti-Muslim, with speeches reproducing stereotypes and exclusionary discourses targeting religious and ethnic identities.
The report found that 74% of messages included content that attacked the dignity of target groups by dehumanizing them, while 50% of the total used overtly violent language and 14% called for direct aggression, serious indicators of the escalation of digital hate speech.
The Observatory noted that 40% of the speeches described immigrants or foreign nationals as a “burden” or “backwardness” to society, while 15% of them called for the expulsion of these citizens from Spanish territory, an exclusionary speech that goes beyond sports criticism and is downright racist incitement.
