Online Abuse of Athletes: Part Two

The scale of online abuse becomes particularly visible during major global sporting events. The 2024 Paris Olympics provided a clear example. With such a large international audience and unprecedented visibility for women’s sport, the level of abuse reflected the magnitude of the event. During the Games, the IOC implemented an AI system to monitor and identify abusive messages across social media, and the findings demonstrated just how widespread athlete online abuse has become.

The study analysed 2.4 million posts and comments from 20,000 athletes and officials’ social media from platforms Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X. It flagged over 152,000 posts or comments as potentially abusive and detected 8,900 unique accounts as sending abusive messages. The dominant type of abuse the AI model detected was gender-based abuse with sexual violence targeted at female athletes. One incident of online abuse was aimed at the boxer Imane Khelif, who won gold in the women's welterweight category. The abuse was primarily gender-based, and what she suffered was so severe that she filed a cyberbullying lawsuit in the French court. This case, named both JK Rowling and Elon Musk showing how pervasive and accepted the online abuse of athletes has become. What is clear from Khelif’s case is that for there to truly be a change in online abuse, there must be a cultural change in the attitudes of the spectators and a greater level of respect for athletes.

Sports gambling has also become a major driver of online abuse. Betting-related harassment now forms a significant proportion of the messages that athletes receive, particularly during live events. Abusive posts often appear immediately after a missed shot or lost point and frame the athlete as personally responsible for a failed bet. This kind of abuse is transactional and aggressive, fueled by financial loss and enabled by the speed and anonymity of online platforms. As gambling becomes more deeply embedded in sport, athletes are increasingly exposed to this backlash, despite having no control over how their performances are wagered on.

What remains striking is how much responsibility still falls on individual athletes. They are told to mute accounts, block users, or step away from social media, as though the solution lies in personal resilience rather than structural change. However, proactive steps are being seen more regularly now, with the use of AI message screening and other technologies. In 2024, the FA announced that it would be funding a unit within the police force to find and prosecute those who abuse footballers online during England’s 2024 Euro campaign. While that moved the responsibility away from the individual and it was apositive step for those England players who played the Euros, the FA are the wealthiest NGB in the UK, with it being very unlikely that other sports have the resources or the funding to implement a similar initiative.

AI has a huge role to play in the prevention of abuse that is being published from reaching athletes, with companies such as Signify and Genius Sports using AI to screen the content of messages, remove abusive content from the platforms and report accounts to the social media platforms. While platforms and sporting bodies have begun to introduce monitoring tools and reporting systems, progress is uneven and often reactive. Too often, action only follows once abuse has already caused harm.

Online abuse is not an unavoidable byproduct of modern sport. It is a cultural and governance issue that requires coordinated action from platforms, governing bodies, clubs, and regulators. If athlete welfare is taken seriously, digital harm cannot be treated as an acceptable cost of visibility or success. If the nature of the crowd has changed, the response to it must change as well.

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The NPA recognise that this can affect players mentally and emotionally so they offer direct support from our Player Development Managers, Sarah Gandon and Gabby Marshall, who are both trained in Mental Health First Aid and can refer players to other NPA psychological services. 

You can also seek help from:

• Your netball club safeguarding officer

• Genevieve Gordon-Thomson, NPA Safeguarding Officer

• Dickon Turner, England Netball Lead Safeguarding Officer

Or, alternatively, if you would like to speak to someone outside of netball, then you can get

in contact with:

• The police

• Safeguarding Matters