Chelsea FC women’s have announced a new long-term collaboration with Signify Group, a global leader in proactively tackling online abuse.
(This piece mentions graphic content around sexual assault and suicide.)
This comes after players have spoken out about the abuse they have faced, which is only growing as the game's popularity on social media platforms grows.
Within this collaboration, the club will be able to monitor and respond to online threats aimed at players, coaches and key staff in a more targeted way. The service includes detection, prevention, and support tools, as well as educational workshops for the Chelsea team. This will cover all major platforms, including X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Chelsea's own channels.
They will be able to identify abusers and help the club take action or escalate cases to authorities when needed. Arsenal have been working on this for three years now, and recently UK Sport signed a contract with Social Protect, an AI app designed to detect and hide abusive posts on social media, helping Team GB athletes protect their accounts throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games cycle up to 2028.
A Chelsea FC Women spokesperson said: ‘The welfare of our players, coaches and staff is of the utmost importance to Chelsea FC Women. By working with Signify Group, we are taking proactive steps to address online abuse and threats further, ensuring our players, staff and the wider Chelsea Women’s family can focus on what matters most – competing at the highest level on the pitch.’
These announcements come after Sonia Bompastor sat down with BBC Sport to talk about the abuse she has received. She said: “The only thing which is not acceptable is just like the violence on the comments and the fact people think just because they are behind the screen they can make the comments they want and I think that's the part where it's not acceptable and I think I want to raise my voice against that because I think people don't understand the effect it can have on the mental health of someone.”
There’s also a big concern about women’s players' safety, unlike the men, who are more accessible and not hiding in mansions with gates.
A new BBC investigation has shed light on just how severe that abuse can get. On the weekend of Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal at the start of November, there were 97 abusive messages posted about WSL matches – and half of those were directed at Bompastor. Among the messages were a threat of violence and a homophobic slur. According to the BBC, a 90% drop in the number of affiliated fans sending abuse to their own players, coach and owners has been noted. More than 20,000 extremely abusive social media posts, including death and rape threats, were sent about managers and players in the Premier League and WSL in a single weekend.
In the data covering the weekend of the 8th-9th November, messages including racist slurs, homophobia and threats of violence were also found.
Managers were targeted more than players, with 82% of abusive posts on X (formerly Twitter). Thirty-nine posts - including monkey emojis on black players' accounts and rape threats - were deemed serious enough to warrant further investigation, which in some cases involves reporting to football clubs for potential identification of fans, and possible referral to law enforcement. One post was reported to the police, who decided it did not meet their threshold for further action. Only one of the posts flagged to Meta, which owns and operates Facebook and Instagram, was removed. The others remain under investigation.
Some of the 37 posts flagged to X were removed, while the others had their reach suppressed but remained online.
"If this happened on the street, this would have criminal consequences, potential financially damaging consequences," said Professional Footballers' Association chief executive Maheta Molango. "So why is it that online people have got this sense of impunity? We need to put an end to this." For women, this abuse is all too common on and off the pitch, especially among pundits, for example, within the male game.
Karen Carney has experienced the worst posts, wished she had got cancer, leukaemia and been raped, which resulted in her having suicidal thoughts after she commented on Leeds United on Twitter. Even now, she looks close to tears. “That crushed my confidence. It floored me as a human, completely floored me. I’ve never got over it.”
Keira Walsh, an England star, was asked about Carney's online abuse. She said: “I think you’d be struggling to find a player in the WSL who hasn’t had (online abuse),” she said. “I think in the WSL you’d be struggling to find a player that hasn’t had abuse. We sit here a lot and say more needs to be done, particularly to stop misogynistic abuse and coordinate pile-ons.”
The boss of the communications regulator fears sport will lose out on female stars because of online abuse - and is urging social media companies to adopt recommendations to clean up their platforms. OFCOM has asked the likes of Elon Musk's X and Meta-owned Instagram to offer greater protections, particularly to stop misogynistic abuse and coordinated pile-ons. Their recommendations include prompts telling users to reconsider harmful messages, stopping payment for posts promoting misogynistic abuse and sexual violence. Finally, ensuring “for you pages” recommended posts have more perspectives to stop being “toxic echo chambers.”
Sky News revealed suspected online hate crimes referred to police have already quadrupled this season in English football.
Immediate action is demanded, but it won't be for another two years that Ofcom considers asking the government to strengthen online safety laws if moves to reduce the toxicity and trolling fall short.
SentientSports GuardianAI scanned public posts on X, Instagram, and TikTok between 7 pm and 11 pm during the Lionesses' dramatic penalty shootout win against Sweden in the Euro 2022 quarter-final. Posts to the official Lionesses account, replies, and mentions of any England player and uses of the #Lionesses hashtag were scanned and then graded by an AI tool based on the severity of the abusive content. Of the 10,110 posts during the four hours of the Sweden match, 6.8 per cent were abusive or insulting, with Keira Walsh (16 per cent), Carter (14 per cent) and Lauren James (12 per cent) receiving the most toxicity.
Carter, who said at the weekend that she would 'step back' from social media due to abusive messages, was mentioned in 9.8 per cent of posts scanned (989 posts) - almost double the next most mentioned player, Lucy Bronze (517 posts), for whom the sentiment (87 per cent) was overwhelmingly positive.
Carter has hit out at the racist abuse she has suffered during England's Euro 2025 tournament. Conversely, 91 per cent of the posts about Carter expressed negative sentiment - the highest figure calculated. Of the 14 per cent of abusive or insulting posts about Carter, SentientSports analysis found 85 per cent 'hostile criticism', 12 per cent' personal abuse', and 3 per cent' discriminatory attacks'. The abusive users were overwhelmingly based in the UK (91 per cent), with 75 per cent male users and 25 per cent female. 27% of users sent multiple instances of abuse.
If the content affects you, please reach out for help.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 or by email at jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
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