FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Premier League - Chelsea v Everton - Stamford Bridge, London, Britain - April 15, 2024 The big screen displays a no room for racism message before the match REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
(Reuters) - The 2023-24 season saw anti-discrimination and inclusion charity Kick It Out receive a record number of reports of discrimination in a single season, the UK-based organisation said on Wednesday.
Incorporating incidents from across professional soccer, grassroots and social media, Kick It Out received 1,332 reports last season — a 32% rise from the previous year.
Racism remained the most reported form of discrimination with a 47% rise, while faith-based discriminatory reports also increased by 34%.
"These figures underline the seriousness of football's discrimination problem, with reports to Kick It Out more than doubling over the past two seasons," Kick It Out Chair Sanjay Bhandari said in a statement.
"It's deeply concerning to see how steeply reports are rising. However, we believe this increase can also be attributed to fans becoming less tolerant of discrimination and greater awareness of reporting procedures.
"Encouragingly, we are seeing stronger punishments for racist abuse in recent years... We now need to see better coordination from football authorities and stakeholders to ensure there are positive outcomes for victims of abuse across the game."
The organisation said that over half of the racist abuse targeting players is directed at players from an East Asian background.
In November last year, a Crystal Palace fan received a three-year ban from football for racially abusing Tottenham Hotspur's South Korean forward Son Heung-min, who has also been subjected to racist abuse in the past.
While reports of homophobic mass chanting went down for the second consecutive season, reports of sexism and misogyny continued to rise, Kick It Out added.
(Reporting by Pearl Josephine Nazare in Bengaluru; editing by Pritha Sarkar)
