Kick It Out unveils findings of research into football-related hate crime on social media

Thursday 16 Apr 2015
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Kick It Out, football’s equality and inclusion organisation, has published new research revealing the true extent of football-related hate crime across social media after hosting a special event unveiling the findings at Headspace in London this evening (16 April).

The research, conducted by Tempero, the world’s largest full-service social media management agency, and Brandwatch, a world leading social intelligence and analytics company, focuses on discriminatory messages directed at Premier League clubs, their fans and players.

Carried out in co-ordination with Kick It Out, the research covers all strands of discrimination and looks at the volume of messages issued across publicly accessible social media sources, forums and websites using Brandwatch Analytics between August 2014 and March 2015.

The findings identify the most common forms of discrimination posted across social media towards clubs and players, and the regularity with which this occurs. It also looks at which clubs are the main targets for abuse and case studies have been undertaken on specific players too.

Background

Kick It Out started receiving complaints of social media abuse during the 2012/13 season. The organisation had never dealt with these kinds of incidents before, and after receiving advice from the Crown Prosecution Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers, started reporting the incidents to True Vision – a national reporting facility which had been developed to deal with hate crime online.

The challenge for Kick It Out was, and still is, that incidents occurring on social media do not fall under any football regulation, which meant that the organisation could not use its normal route of reporting. Kick It Out realised that much of the abuse happening online was left unchallenged, and therefore took steps towards implementing a structure to deal with complaints.

Here is a breakdown of the level of incidents of social media abuse reported to Kick It Out:

2012/13 season

19 incidents

12 of these incidents reported by Kick It Out to Police as a Hate Crime

4 responses from the Police

2 reached a conclusion where the offender was identified and action taken

2013/14 season

142 incidents

113 of these incidents reported by Kick It Out to Police as a Hate Crime

31 responses from the Police

9 have reached a conclusion where the offender has been identified and action taken (1 led to prosecution and 2 further education sessions delivered by Kick It Out)

2014/15 season

Mid-season reporting statistics

73 incidents (between August 2014 and 28 December 2014)

41 of these incidents reported by Kick It Out to Police as a Hate Crime

13 incidents being investigated by the Police

After issuing mid-season reporting statistics

67 incidents (between 29 December 2014 and March 2015)

The Findings

The research was conducted to measure the volume of discriminatory posts directed at all Premier League clubs and players between August 2014 and March 2015. Therefore, the figures shown below are to be considered as the best estimate of ‘direct abuse’ only.

The estimated instances of discriminatory abuse amount to approximately 134.4K (16.8K per month)

Over 95K discriminatory posts directed towards Premier League teams

Approximately 39K discriminatory posts directed towards Premier League players

Clubs

The Premier League clubs receiving the highest volume of discriminatory posts is as follows:

Chelsea (20K)
Liverpool (19K)
Arsenal (12K)
Manchester United (11K)
Manchester City (11K)

Players

A number of players were selected as case studies to understand the volume of discriminatory abuse they receive. Here are three examples:

Mario Balotelli

– Over 8K discriminatory posts directed at him

– Over 52% of the posts directed at him were racist

Danny Welbeck

– Approximately 1.7K discriminatory posts directed at him

– 50% of the posts directed at him were racist

Daniel Sturridge

– Approximately 1.6K discriminatory posts directed at him

– Over 60% of the posts directed at him were discrimination based on sexual orientation

Types of discrimination

The distribution of the messages when broken into the different categories of discrimination read as follows:

Race (28%)

Gender (25%)

Sexual Orientation (19%)

Disability (11%)

Antisemitism (9%)

Islamophobia (5%)

Age (2%)

Gender Reassignment (1%)

Gender breakdown

A look at the gender distribution of discriminatory mentions reveals a large proportion of abuse from men. 78% of mentions come from men and 22% originate from women.

Location

The three cities with the highest volume of discriminatory posts were London (14,273), Manchester (4,498) and Liverpool (3,667) – all areas with large populations and successful clubs contained within.

Virtual Location

The virtual location was tracked of the authors of the discriminatory posts revealing the following:

Twitter 88%
Facebook 8%*
Forums 3%
Blogs 1%

*All private profiles are gated and mentions made on these profiles are not monitored, therefore, they have not been included in this report. As Facebook has the highest number of gated profiles, the amount of authors tracked from that network is significantly lower than Twitter.

Overview

What’s the true extent of discriminatory abuse used in relation to clubs and players in the Premier League? Here it is, broken down:

134.4K discriminatory posts this season
16.8K discriminatory posts a month
551 discriminatory posts a day
1 abusive mention every 2.6 minutes
Matches

Here is the list of games with the largest volume of discriminatory mentions relating to them:

1 – Chelsea v Liverpool, Capital One Cup – 27 January 2015

2 – Sunderland v Manchester United, Premier League – 24 August 2014

3 – Arsenal v Manchester City, Community Shield – 10 August 2014

4 – Manchester United v Arsenal, The FA Cup – 9 March 2015

5 – Liverpool v Manchester United, Premier League – 22 March 2015

6 – Chelsea v Arsenal, Premier League – 5 October 2014

7 – Liverpool v Chelsea, Premier League – 8 November 2014

8 – Manchester United v Liverpool, Premier League – 14 December 2014

Next Step

The research has been prompted by Kick It Out to help demonstrate the true extent of football-related hate crime across social media. This research was carried out on a pro bono basis by Tempero and Brandwatch, and came at no cost to Kick It Out.

The majority of complaints Kick It Out receives of football-related hate crime posted on social media platforms are made in relation to the Premier League. Therefore, it was decided this would be the focus of the research in order to give a clear insight into the volume of abuse across social media.

Kick It Out is now exploring forming an expert group on how to tackle football-related hate crime across social media. Kick It Out will look to bring together those working within football, the main social media platforms, organisations dealing with internet safety and the Police.

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"We have a responsibility as players to give something back and I’m really thankful to be part of this organisation because we can do a lot of good."
Jack Butland, 'Next 20' Ambassador
“A big part of my involvement with Kick It Out stems from my strong admiration for the organisation’s commitment to fairness and equality.”
Clive Tyldesley, football commentator
“It was Kick It Out that convinced the people in football that change was possible.”
Greg Dyke, former FA chairman
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Yaya Toure, Manchester City midfielder
“It is important for me in my role as a Kick It Out ‘Next 20’ ambassador to teach young people how to handle discrimination and treat people with respect.”
Romelu Lukaku, 'Next 20' Ambassador
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Toni Duggan, 'Next 20' Ambassador
"It really helped me to see that other professional sports people were acknowledging their sexuality. I read about John Amaechi, Gareth Thomas and Tom Daley. They weren't footballers but the fact that they went public gave me the feeling that I was not alone."
Thomas Hitzlsperger, former Aston Villa midfielder
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Sadio Mané, Liverpool winger
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Ffion Eade, Hampshire FA referee
"I've had loads of negative comments from men, especially growing up. It's just boring and old. Times have changed, and they continue to change. Women play football, and they're good at it, and have been for a number of years.”
Kelly Smith, England Women's record goalscorer
"Despite the progress, stereotypes still exist in football and until that is broken down it will be extremely difficult for a woman to manage a top level men's team."
Rachel Yankey, former Arsenal Ladies forward
"There’s no hiding that there is sexism in sport. We have a lack of women right across all levels of management, playing and coaching. It shows the closed nature of sport in general and this includes the media. It’s an indictment of sport as a whole."
Rimla Akhtar, Kick It Out trustee and Chair of the Muslim Women’s Sports Foundation
“I’m proud to be a supporter of Kick It Out and particularly the work they are doing to combat antisemitism within football.”
Joe Jacobson, Wycombe Wanderers midfielder
"With Kick It Out leading the way football is standing up and fighting against those who preach hatred and intolerance and we at Chelsea are proud to support their work."
Bruce Buck, Chelsea Football Club Chairman

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