England’s World Cup squad is receiving fewer hate mail than at last year’s Euro

England’s World Cup squad received far fewer hate mail than during last year’s EURO.

The Times has reported that there were 168 abusive social media posts during the Qatar tournament, all directed at players on Twitter.

This compares to last year’s Euros, which saw around 3,000 in just the hours following the penalty shoot-out loss to Italy in the final.

England’s players received far fewer hateful messages than during Euro 2020

England’s players received around 3,000 hateful messages after last year’s Euro 2020 final alone – with those who missed penalties, including Bukayo Saka, facing racial abuse online

Much of the insult in 2021 has been thrown at Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, who have been inundated with racist messages after missing penalties in the final.

Eleven people have been arrested after police investigated 207 hate messages and a teenager has been sentenced to six weeks in prison after the abuse in 2021.

In recent weeks, the news to the England squad has been mostly positive and hopeful.

However, Harry Kane, who missed a penalty in the quarter-final loss to France, was the Three Lions’ most abused player in Qatar.

There were 88 tweets addressed to the England captain, followed by Ben White at 23 after he left the tournament early for personal reasons.

The last player to receive more than 10 abusive tweets was Mason Mount on April 11.

The research was conducted by HateLab, a surveillance group at Cardiff University that used artificial intelligence to monitor Twitter, Reddit, 4Chan and Telegram for posts targeting gamers with either racist, homophobic or transphobic content.

There were “tens of thousands” of abuse messages sent to players during Euro 2020

There were more optimistic messages from England during the tournament in Qatar

During the Euro 2020 tournament, HateLab reportedly detected “tens of thousands of hateful tweets” reaching “920 per hour” after the final.

Professor Matthew Williams, the director of HateLab, said: “Compared to Euro 2020, we see very little racist, anti-black communication aimed at the players. For the most part, the hopeful posts, very positive posts, eclipsed the mass of very negative and hateful posts.

Williams said last year’s charges may have played a role in reducing hate speech. While Twitter now acknowledges the use of certain emojis as racial abuse.

However, he added: “Obviously, I think one reason for that is that there weren’t any triggering events in the tournament where a black player made a big mistake.”

Harry Kane received the most abusive messages in Qatar, followed by Ben White and Mason Mount

Kane missed a penalty against France as they were eliminated from the World Cup last week

However, there have been some “anti-LGBTQ” messages, fueled by rows over scrapped plans for Harry Kane to wear an armband in support of gay rights.

England captain Kane missed a crucial penalty as the Three Lions were eliminated in the quarter-finals by a 2-1 defeat by France.

Rashford and Saka, who missed penalties in last season’s final, were England’s top scorers in Qatar with three goals each – while Sancho was left out of the squad after struggling for form at Manchester United.