Study: Lamine Yamal receives most racial abuse online in Spain

A study has concluded that Lamine Yamal receives more racial abuse on social media than all other La Liga players put together. The Barcelona forward, who was targeted by Real Madrid fans at the Santiago Bernabeu in 2024, is main figure of online hate in Spain.

The scourge of racism has been on the rise in stadiums and seemingly online too in recent years in Spanish football, and has been met with increased visibility and criminal punishment of late. The face of the campaign against it has been Vinicius Junior, who receives the second highest number of racial attacks online.

Lamine Yamal receives most racial abuse on social media

The study, conducted by the Spanish Observatory of Racism and Xenophobia (Oberaxe), uses an AI system called FARO in order to detect racial attacks. During last season, a total of 33,438 attacks of reportable content were recorded. El Pais have published its findings, and the results are that Lamine Yamal has received 60% of all racial abuse online. Between the Barcelona star and Vinicius (29%), they account for nearly 90% of all attacks, with Kylian Mbappe, Alejandro Balde, Brahim Diaz and Inaki Williams the other highest ranking targets.

The study found that players of Barcelona (32%) and Real Madrid (34%) are the most targeted by far, followed by Real Valladolid (17%), Valencia (8%), Athletic Club (6%), Real Sociedad (5%) and Atletico Madrid (5%).

Twitter/X worst at policing racial abuse

Of the sites that were analysed, Oberaxe discovered that Facebook was the site that were most active in combating racism. The abuse commented or posted was removed in 62% of cases, while the worst site at policing racial hatred is Twitter/X. Elon Musk’s platform removes just 10% of reported content with racial abuse in it.

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La Liga have stepped up efforts to combat racism in stadiums, but in a global context, there are many who feel that the punishments handed out by the Spanish authorities are not consistent or harsh enough to become a deterrent.