Historically, football has been an environment marked by racist, homophobic expressions and other forms of hatred. Often hidden behind “passion” and “fervor,” these incidents have been and continue to be tolerated in a discipline that remains a more frenzied manifestation of its societies.
Although its protagonists (players and technical teams) seem increasingly aware to avoid or condemn these episodes, off the field, the World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico has accumulated ample evidence that racism still surrounds the most popular sport globally.
Football is also not exempt from a context in which xenophobic manifestations and racist attacks seem to gain a threshold of acceptance, especially in the public speeches of political leaders. Likewise, some strong responses of repudiation show that there is also strong resistance to this trend.
No team has suffered more racist attacks in this World Cup than France. Most of these aggressions focus on the Afro or Arab roots of some members of their team, falsely accused of supposedly ‘not being French.’ It is something the country has had to deal with internally, as far-right figures, such as Marine Le Pen, have questioned the “identity” of their national team in the past.
Today, her party National Rally is one of those that joined the unanimous rejection by French politics of the comments made by former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who in an opinion column published on Friday, July 10, in the media outlet El Debate claimed that Spain would face a French team of “a very high level, that is, without French players.”
The premise, of course, is false. All 26 players on Les Bleus’ roster are French citizens, including only three who, although not born in that country, of course, hold the nationality of the European country: Michael Olise (United Kingdom), Brice Samba (Congo), and Marcus Thuram (Italy).
Reproaches also came from Spain. The current head of La Moncloa, Pedro Sánchez, accused Rajoy of still being part of those who measure “belonging by surname, place of birth, or skin color” and condemned his “xenophobic statements,” as did his ministers. The same was done by two La Roja players who had contact with the press, Borja Iglesias and Pau Cubarsí, while a spokesperson for the Popular Party, to which Rajoy belongs, tried to minimize his words, claiming it was a “sarcastic” phrase and “without bad intentions.”
But Rajoy has not been alone among those who, from the political world, have poured their racist messages against France. The most relevant case has been that of Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla, who, after Paraguay’s elimination at the hands of ‘Les Bleus,’ attacked Kylian Mbappé, calling him a “colonized Cameroonian,” “brute,” and other similar insults.
Her remarks led the French Prosecutor’s Office to open an investigation against her for aggravated public insult and incitement to hatred or violence, while Mbappé called her a “despicable woman” and “unworthy” of her position. Far from retracting, Amarilla – who did not receive any sanction from the Paraguayan Senate – doubled down and even threatened to sue the French star for “gender violence,” thus trivializing sexist attacks along the way.
Paraguay’s elimination and an alleged arrogant attitude of Mbappé and his teammates during the match also motivated the vice-governor of Mendoza province (in western Argentina), Hebe Casado, to say that France was an “African team lacking manners.” For that reason, she was declared a “persona non grata” by the French Embassy in Argentina.
Neither the regional government nor the national executive of Javier Milei – with whom Casado is aligned – commented on the politician’s remarks, who on Monday, July 13, reaffirmed in statements to Radio Aconcagua that “I don’t see any kind of racism” in her X post.
Another form of racism, more subtle but always repeated in every World Cup, is the recurring stereotypes about African teams and Afro-descendant players, who are considered naturally strong and physically powerful but tactically naive, emotionally fragile, or unable to handle pressure.
Belgium’s coach, the French Rudi Garcia, found himself in the eye of the storm when he pointed out that Senegal – the rival the “Red Devils” eliminated in the round of 16 after coming back from a 0-2 deficit – was one of “those teams” that “tend to lose their tactical structure towards the end of the match.”
In a statement published on his social media, Garcia tried to explain that he was referring to “teams not used to managing a lead in high-level World Cup matches” and that this could apply to teams from any region, but his explanation did not satisfy everyone.
For Ben Carrington, a journalism and sociology professor at USC Annenberg and a researcher on the intersection of race and sport, Garcia’s discourse “is deeply racist in terms of reproducing racialized stereotypes about those African teams that lack the ability to control a match, to control themselves.”
“That comes from that colonial framework of animalistic tendencies projected onto Black people and Black populations,” he told Reuters.
In one of the most recent studies, focused on comments during the 2018 World Cup, researchers from Leicester and Coventry universities found that 70% of praise for Afro-descendant players focuses on their physical attributes, and less than 20% focuses on their learned skills, character, or cognitive abilities.
These patterns seemed to be repeated in comments made by two former footballers turned TV broadcast analysts.
At the start of the tournament, the German Bastian Schweinsteiger warned, before the match between Germany and Ivory Coast, that the German team had to be “prepared for unpredictability at times” and pointed out that the Ivorians have a style of “African football,” which he described as “sometimes somewhat unorthodox, a bit wild, not so tactical.”
Ivory Coast’s coach, Emerse Faé, said he felt “very disappointed” by Schweinsteiger’s “racist” comment, who in a statement denied that his remarks had that intention, said he was talking “about football, not about people,” and apologized to “those who may have felt offended.”
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For his part, former Serbian player Rade Bogdanovic also had to apologize for comments made on the Serbian public channel RTS while commenting on the Belgium vs. Iran match on June 21.
“I have always said that those players — and I am really not racist — but Black players lack concentration to last more than 60 or 80 minutes,” Bogdanovic said then, insisting on his statement despite receiving objections from the show’s host.
According to experts, the apparently subtle forms of racism, like those of the mentioned commentators, are the breeding ground to normalize more widespread aggressions, such as racially motivated attacks on social media, which have increased.
An analysis by FIFA’s social media protection service of six million posts and comments detected 89,000 instances of offensive content – thirteen times more than in the 2022 World Cup – of which 11% (3% more than in 2022) were racist insults, being the most common form of online aggression and also containing the harshest insults.
Although this increase is contributed to by a greater participation of teams (32 in 2022 versus 48 in 2026) and better and broader detection methods, FIFA warned that “the data shows an alarming upward trend regarding insults with racist aggravation.”
A similar concern was expressed by the footballers’ union FIFPRO, which in a statement published on July 4 denounced that “in recent weeks, players have been victims of abuse online and in person, many of them racist and discriminatory,” including “intimidation and hostility off the pitch.”
“These incidents are not isolated; they point to a systemic pattern that cannot continue to be accepted either in football or in society,” it emphasized, while calling on football authorities, public officials, and private institutions “to intensify their efforts, as monitoring and reporting alone cannot change behavior or prevent harm.”
Although FIFPRO did not provide concrete examples, the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) stated that after the Netherlands’ elimination against Morocco in the round of 16, some of its players had been “treated in a racist and discriminatory manner.”
In recent years, FIFA has launched initiatives to sanction acts of racism, develop educational programs on the subject, and present awareness campaigns, for example, with announcements in stadiums and TV broadcasts during matches.
Likewise, it has implemented a protocol to report racist aggressions on the field (crossing arms to call attention) and, in this World Cup, has implemented a rule that sanctions with expulsion any player who covers their mouth to address a rival.
This measure was adopted after Argentine player Gianluca Prestianni was accused by Brazilian Vinicius of covering his mouth with his jersey to allegedly utter racist insults during a Champions League match between Benfica and Real Madrid.
Although the Benfica winger was not sanctioned on the field because the aggression could not be proven and later denied having made racist insults, he did admit to having hurled homophobic insults, for which he was suspended for six matches internationally.
These measures, however, are not enough to overcome persistent stereotypes. “We need constant forms of education and campaigns against racism to ensure that the king of sports is truly beautiful, not just a slogan FIFA uses for marketing purposes,” Carrington insisted.
Likewise, FIFA’s own initiatives are questioned when, at the same time, its president Gianni Infantino shows alignment or flexibility with the demands of the countries hosting its competitions.
This 2026 World Cup, for example, is taking place in the United States under the Donald Trump Administration, which has long used xenophobic language, is leading an unprecedented immigration crackdown, or has even arbitrarily denied visas to fans from dozens of countries (mostly African) or prevented the entry of one of the referees appointed for the World Cup, Somali Omar Artan.
For Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch, “there is a close relationship” between “the surge in racist attacks” and the context and location where the tournament is held.
“If communities of color are constantly attacked by the Trump Administration, and Gianni Infantino has repeatedly appeared in photos with Donald Trump at the White House, the message is conveyed that, although there are initiatives (against racism) at FIFA, they are not very serious,” the HRW Global Initiatives director told The Guardian.
More broadly, Worden pointed to “FIFA’s alliance with autocrats everywhere,” such as in Russia and Qatar, the organizers of the two previous World Cups.
“The fact that FIFA has not implemented its own non-discrimination rules in Russia, Qatar, and the United States has given the green light to hate communities, making them believe it is okay to attack players,” she concluded.
