London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 11, 2025

Ban online racist abusers from football matches - Labour

Ban online racist abusers from football matches - Labour

Anyone convicted of racist abuse online should be banned from attending football matches, Labour has suggested.

It wants the courts to be given new powers to crack down on perpetrators, like those who targeted members of the England squad after the Euros final.

Currently, only those who shout racist abuse from the terraces can be forbidden from attending games.

There has been condemnation of the abuse suffered by footballers Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho.

The trio were vilified online and a mural of Marcus Rashford was defaced following England's defeat to Italy on Sunday.

It sparked a debate about whether the government and social media companies are doing enough to combat racism in the sport.

Ministers have promised to act through the Online Safety Bill, which is yet to be published.

A draft version, which came out earlier this year, suggests it will place a duty on technology companies to protect UK users from abuse, with large fines imposed if they fail to do this.

Labour's shadow culture secretary Jo Stevens said urgent action was needed, but the government's bill would not stop racist abuse online.

She said: "The racists who have been abusing England players online should be banned from football grounds.

"They do not deserve to be anywhere near a game of football."

She said that Labour would ensure that online abuse is treated in the same way as racism directed at players from the terraces.

'Utterly disgraceful'


The prime minister met social media companies, including representatives from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok on Tuesday afternoon, to discuss the issue.

Ahead of the meeting, his spokesman said the companies should "do everything they can to identify these people [the perpetrators of racist abuse]".

And earlier, Mr Johnson told a meeting of his senior ministers that the racism aimed at footballers was "utterly disgraceful and had emerged from the dark spaces of the internet".

Facebook, which owns Instagram, said it had "quickly removed comments" directed at the players, while Twitter said it had used "a combination of machine learning based automation and human review" to remove 1,000 post and block certain accounts.


Why abuse remains rife on social media


This sheer volume swamps the armies of human moderators employed by those platforms.

Some describe nightmare shifts sifting through the worst and most graphic content imaginable and then making decisions about what should be done with it.

So, the solution these companies are all pouring countless time and money into is automation.

Algorithms trained to seek out offensive material before it is published, the blanket banning of incendiary (and illegal) hashtags, the use of techniques such as "hashing", which create a kind of digital fingerprint of a video, and then block any content bearing the same marker, are already in regular use.

But so far, automation remains a bit of a blunt instrument.

Decisive moment


In a message to Conservative MPs, the former minister Steve Baker, said the backlash over the racist abuse "may be a decisive moment" for the party.

He said "Much as we can't be associated with calls to defund the police, we urgently need to challenge out own attitude to people taking the knee."

The act of taking the knee has become a prominent symbol in sport and during anti-racist protests in recent years, and England players have been adopting the stance at the start of their matches.

His intervention comes after the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, was accused by the footballer, Tyrone Mings, of having inflamed the situation in the run up to the Euros.

Writing on Twitter on Monday evening, Mings said: "You don't get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as 'Gesture Politics' and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we're campaigning against, happens."

On Wednesday, shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, will raise the issue in the Commons, asking an urgent question about the prevalence of racist abuse on social media.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
Starmer Establishes Economic ‘Budget Board’ to Centralise Policy and Rebuild Business Trust
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum
Trinidad Leader Applauds U.S. Naval Strike and Advocates Forceful Action Against Traffickers
Kim Jong Un Oversees Final Test of New High-Thrust Solid-Fuel Rocket Engine
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid
Charlie Sheen says his father, Martin Sheen, turned him in to the police: 'The greatest betrayal possible'
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
Pig Heads Left Outside Multiple Paris Mosques in Outrage-Inducing Acts
Nvidia’s ‘Wow’ Factor Is Fading. The AI chip giant used to beat Wall Street expectations for earnings by a substantial margin. That trajectory is coming down to earth.
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
On the Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s Death: Prince Harry Returns to Britain
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Murdoch Family Finalises $3.3 Billion Succession Pact, Ensuring Eldest Son’s Leadership
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
Generations Born After 1939 Unlikely to Reach Age One Hundred, New Study Finds
End to a four-year manhunt in New Zealand: the father who abducted his children to the forests was killed, the three siblings were found
Germany Suspends Debt Rules, Funnels €500 Billion Toward Military and Proxy War Strategy
EU Prepares for War
BMW Eyes Growth in China with New All‑Electric Neue Klasse Lineup
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Florida Murder Case: The Adelson Family, the Killing of Dan Markel, and the Trial of Donna Adelson
×