An Open Letter about Racism to Football (Soccer) Twitter

An Open Letter to Football (Soccer) Twitter During Black History Month

by Anabel Pérez for The Signature

February 2025

 

Dear Fans of Football Twitter,

 

Banter. Racial slurs. Fail comps. Losing score lines. Many soccer fans defend the joking culture on what’s known as football Twitter (FT) as harmless fun; whatever people say on Twitter doesn’t hurt anyone, right? After all, “Twitter isn’t real life.” However, even these little jokes can negatively impact both professional soccer players and fans. The FT community has a big problem with racism and abuse that nobody wants to talk about.

 

Case in point: The terrible treatment of Black British players in the 2020 Euros. Missing in the penalty shootout against Italy that cost the English National Team the trophy, soccer players Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho faced a bombardment of racial abuse especially on Twitter.  According to NBC, the 3 players were subject to “2,087 racist tweets” that were only removed 3 days after the Euro final. Further, the team in its entirety faced 2,114 abusive tweets across the competition, 102 of them containing racist abuse, according to the Guardian. Not only did the English NT suffer from fans’ racism, but other fans on FT saw racism against their people normalized.

 

In addition, racism on FT has been exacerbated due to Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform and the

following changes he made to moderation on the app. During the 2022 World Cup, the Guardian reported that researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that 99 out of 100 reported

tweets–“posts that hurled racist abuse at footballers, including the N-word, monkey emojis and calls for them to be deported”–were not removed from Twitter, even when clearly violating the app’s terms of service. Further, all of the tweets in the CCDH’s study mentioned soccer players by name and were in the replies of official football club accounts–demonstrating that these tweets could be easily visible by the soccer players targeted. 

 

When Mbappé extended his contract with PSG in 2022, months before the World Cup and in the middle of his Real Madrid saga, even the French–his own people–began to spew insults at him that painted him as money hungry : “Mpaypal,” “Mbarassing,” “Mbécile.” This demonstrates that abuse against players for no valid reason is extremely normalized on FT.

 

When posting abusive tweets, you fans forget to think in the perspective of the soccer player you insult. Imagine waking up to thousands of tweets telling you to go back to your country or how bad you are at the game; the constant put-downs would prevent you from performing at your best.

 

It is clear that if Elon’s Twitter won’t do anything, then it is up to us fans on FT to step up in reducing the problem of harmful banter. As Ofcom’s group director for broadcasting and online content Kevin Bakhurst says, “tackling this problem is a team effort.” We hold the responsibility of creating a safe, inclusive environment for everyone who loves the game, regardless of who they are, and calling out the hate. Respect players as human beings. Don’t stay silent–report abuse.

 

Sincerely,

Anabel Pérez

 

This was written for the Signature in Hancock’s English III class as part of an open letter project.