Euro 2022: Uefa reports 290 abusive posts to social media companies following group stage

Uefa says it reported 290 cases of online abuse to social media companies during the group stage of the European Women's Championship.

European football's governing body launched a new project at the start of Euro 2022 to "monitor, report, and remedy cases of online abuse".

Of the 290 abusive posts, 55% have been removed by social media companies.

England were one of the teams most affected by the abusive posts, along with Spain, France and Italy.

The majority of reported posts were directed at the competition (39%), while 19% targeted individual players, 20% were aimed at team accounts and 17% of abusive posts focused on coaches.

The report also showed that 70% of flagged posts included generalised abuse, with 20% featuring sexism.

Meanwhile, racist abuse accounted for 6% of posts and 4% of posts featured homophobic abuse.

Michele Uva, Uefa's director of football and social responsibility, said: "It is great to see the project in action, and I am pleased that we can already see the concrete impact this is having based on the numbers from the group stage.

"Posts are being identified and removed, and we hope that this gives players, coaches, and referees the possibility to be protected by Uefa."

In June, a report by world governing body FIFA and players' union FIFPRO found that 50% of all players at Euro 2020 and this year's Africa Cup of Nations received some kind of online abuse.