June 18 (Reuters) - Captains at Thursday’s World Cup fixtures will exchange special pennants denouncing discrimination to mark the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, as FIFA revealed it has blocked hundreds of thousands of abusive posts during the tournament.
The pre-match exchange will feature in all four of the day’s fixtures: Czech Republic against South Africa, Mexico against South Korea, Switzerland against Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Canada against Qatar. Organisers confirmed the pennants will bear the slogan “We Play Together. We Stand Against Hate,” written in English on one side and the teams’ native languages on the reverse.
The initiative comes as football’s world governing body battles escalating online abuse. FIFA reported that its automated social media protection service, launched ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, has removed more than 30 million abusive posts and comments to date.
Since June 11, the service has deleted 388,000 harmful posts at the 2026 tournament, already eclipsing the 287,000 removals recorded across the entire 2022 event.
Officials added that further anti-discrimination campaigns and stadium activations are scheduled to run throughout Thursday's match schedule.
(Reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk; Editing by Toby Chopra)
