Reporting Statistics

Kick It Out received 1,398 reports of discrimination in the 2024/25 season, marking a continued rise from last season (1,332) and the highest figure ever recorded by the charity. This represents more than double the number of reports received just four seasons ago.

The data, gathered from reports across the professional game, grassroots football, and online spaces, shows rising levels of abuse in several key areas, including sexism, transphobia, ableism, and faith-based abuse, alongside persistently high levels of racism, which remains the most reported form of discrimination.

Reports of sexism and misogyny rose by 67%, increasing from 115 to 192. Much of this was driven by a rise in online abuse, where sexist content rose by 72%. The charity also received 18 reports of sexist chanting, almost as many as the previous four seasons combined. The increase follows the launch of Kick It Out’s Kick Sexism Out campaign and comes amid calls for greater consistency in how sexist abuse is monitored and recorded.

Online abuse remains a major concern, with 621 reports submitted this season, a 5% increase on last year. Racism continues to dominate in this space, accounting for 268 reports, while transphobic abuse doubled, underscoring the need for urgent action to protect marginalised communities. Faith-based abuse also rose sharply, including a five-fold increase in sectarian incidents. 

Ableist abuse increased by 45%, highlighting that disability discrimination remains a persistent but often overlooked issue in football.

 At grassroots level, the charity received 325 reports, up from 303 last season. The biggest shift was seen in youth football, which now accounts for 57% of all grassroots reports. Reports involving girls’ football doubled, with abuse ranging from sexist slurs and exclusion to racist comments and the targeting of young female referees.

 In the professional game, there were 452 reports, up slightly from 440 last season.

You can access the full stats using the download button below. 

Kick It Out received 1,332 reports in the 2023/24 season, the highest number ever received by the anti-discrimination and inclusion charity in a single season. 

The new figures, incorporating reports from across the professional game, grassroots, and social media, represent a 32% rise from the previous year and are over double the 610 received in the 2021/22 season. 

Encouragingly, for the fifth season in a row, Kick It Out’s reports per incident rate has increased, suggesting fans are becoming less tolerant of discriminatory abuse.

The data shows a significant increase in reports of discrimination at grassroots level, up 25% from last season (242 to 303), and on social media, where reports have more than doubled (281 to 589). There has been a small drop in reports related to the pro game (484 to 440), down by 9%, although the number of incidents reported to Kick It Out has increased.

Racism remains the most reported form of discrimination, with the charity seeing an alarming 47% (496 to 731) rise in racist abuse across all levels of the game this season, whilefaith-based discriminatory reports were also up by 34%, driven by a sharp increase in antisemitism (63%) and Islamophobia (138%).

Kick It Out has also received more player-specific discriminatory reports in the professional game than ever before, with abuse targeting players soaring by 43% (277 to 395). 

Figures show that over half (55%) of the racist abuse targeting players is directed at players from an East Asian background, while sexist abuse towards female players, particularly online, is also on the rise. 

Following on from a huge increase in the 2022/23 season, reports of sexism and misogyny continue to surge, up by a further 44% this year (80 to 115). 

For the second consecutive season, reports of homophobic mass chanting are down, from 43 in the 21/22 season to 17 this year. This follows a change in the law and updated FA guidance where certain chants have become a chargeable offence.

The data also revealed: 

• A 22% increase (111 to 143) in reports of discrimination at youth level (U18s), including a seven-fold rise in abuse in U12s football (4 to 25). 

• A worrying rise in abuse toward officials in grassroots football, with over twice as many reports of this nature in comparison to last season. 

• Homophobic reports received from grassroots (down 24%) and professional game (down 9%) both fell. However, LGBTQ+ hate rose sharply online, with reports up from 43 to 65. Reports of transphobia online also climbed by 183%.

• A 35% rise in anti-disability insults and language.

You can access the full stats using the download button below. 

Kick It Out received a record 1,007 reports of discriminatory behaviour in the 2022-23 season.

This total, which includes reports from the professional game, in grassroots and across social media, represents a 65.1% rise on the previous season.

Reports of online abuse increased by 279%, with the organisation receiving 207 more reports related to online forums and social media than in the previous 12 months.

Racism remains the most common form of discrimination in both professional and grassroots football, accounting for just under half (49.3%) of all reports, while reports related to sexism and misogyny represented the largest rise in a specific discrimination type.

Figures show a 400% increase in reports of sexism and misogyny across the board, up from 16 reports to 80, which has been amplified by a massive spike in online abuse towards female players and supporters (up from one report in 2022-23 to 46 this season).

Encouragingly, Kick It Out’s reports per incident rate has risen for the fourth consecutive season, suggesting that fans are more inclined to report discrimination. The significant leap in reports highlights that discrimination is still a serious issue within the game, although the record figures could also be attributed to an increased awareness of reporting procedures and fans becoming less tolerant of discriminatory behaviour.

Faith-based discrimination fell slightly this season, due to an 18% drop in the number of reports received of an antisemitic nature, although Islamophobia (up by 300%) and sectarian chanting (15.8%) were both up.

You can access the full stats using the download button below. 

Using the last comparable season 2019/20 (as the pandemic curtailed attendance at a professional level, and grassroots games were on/off for most of the 2020/21 season), in the 2021/22 season we have seen a 41% increase in reports from the grassroots game (94 in 2019/20 vs 159 in 2021/22), with an 8% drop in reports overall (661 in 2019/20 vs 610 in 2021/22).

On social media, we saw a 38% drop in social media reports, between the 2019/20 and 2021/22 season.

A lot of work has been done to tackle online abuse in the past 18 months, including the introduction of a monitoring platform by the Premier League, as well as a Football Online Hate Working Group established in 2021 by Kick It Out which has addressed processes around sanctions and enforcements, as well as communications and campaigns.

We will continue to work with our partners in football to address any online abuse and push for the Online Safety Bill to be completed when Parliament returns from recess in September this year.

For the 2021/22 season, there was a relatively even spread of reports (averaging 60 reports a month, August 21 to May 22), with small peaks in January 2022 and March 2022. Possible reasons for this are the volume of professional games played in January (with the start of the FA Cup 3rd round), and several rearranged fixtures falling into March.

Reports of racism are again the most common, accounting for 54% of reports (329 reports).

We also looked at the type of abuse captured, with fan-on-player being the most common and accounting for over two fifths of all reports received (43%). The other leading type of abuse reported was fan-on-fan, which consisted of 30% of the incidents reported.

The Kick It Out website remains the most popular way overall of reporting incidents of discriminatory abuse.

Download the full stats here. 
 

In a year which saw very few fans in stadiums or on the sidelines of grassroots games due to COVID-19, reports of incidents are understandably down on the previous year. However, even a small number of incidents is unacceptable, and last year we still saw over 100 reported directly to us. 

Read the full reporting stats here.

Our latest annual report for the 2019/20 season shows shocking increases in the levels of race hate and homophobic abuse, around football matches and across social media – in spite of the season being put on hold for several months due to Covid-19.

Our report details discriminatory related abuse received during the 2019/20 season, at both professional and grassroots levels.

Overall, in the professional game we saw a 42% increase in reports of discrimination in total, up from 313 to 446. There was also a 53% increase in reported racial abuse in the professional game between this season and last, up from 184 to 282. Even more alarmingly, we received 117 reports of abuse based on sexual orientation compared to 60 last season – up by 95%.

At grassroots level there were 94 reports this season compared to 113 last year, a fall of 14%. However, all grassroots matches from March 2020 onwards were cancelled due to Covid-19. Comparing this season to the equivalent period last season, there was an 11% increase in reports.

There were also major changes in how individuals chose to report incidents of discrimination to us. At the professional game, phone reports plummeted by over 70%, while reports via social media leapt by 229%.

We experienced a reduction in the number of complaints direct to us in terms of abuse on social media. We believe that this reflects greater public awareness of mechanisms to report directly to social media companies. There is some evidence to suggest that users are now reporting to us when they have received unsatisfactory responses from initial complaints to social media companies directly. Other data, including the findings of our YouGov poll and the increased investment by social media in human and AI driven content moderation, indicate that hate on social media continues to rise significantly.

Alongside these findings, we launched a YouGov poll with over 1,000 football fans, to gain a better understanding of discrimination incidents across the game.

The results showed that 39% of fans surveyed had witnessed or heard an act of discrimination with the last year and 14% of people had witnessed abuse within the last week alone.

Looking at the football season between January 2019 – December 2019, 30% said they’d witnessed racist comments or chants at a football match and a staggering 71% of those questioned also said they had witnessed racist comments on social media directed at a footballer. A further 51% of fans had also witnessed racism directed at a fan of a different team to theirs on social media.

With the issue of homophobia, the findings were equally shocking. 32% of fans said they’d witnessed homophobic comments at a football match in the last season and of these 41% of respondents have witnessed homophobic abuse aimed a footballer on social media.

Although around 84% of respondents said they’d be able to recognise verbal discriminatory behaviour at a game directed at a footballer, match official, team’s coaching staff or fan who supports the same team or a different team to them, a large proportion of people (22%) say they are unlikely to report any act of discrimination in the future.

And around half of those questioned also said it was unlikely they’d report racist or homophobic abuse directed at players, coaches or match officials at a football game.

Discrimination in both professional and grassroots football rose significantly in the 2018/19 season with reports up by 32 per cent, new figures show.

Statistics from Kick It Out, football’s equality and inclusion organisation, show reports rose to 422 in 2018/19, up from 319 in the previous year.

Alarmingly, incidents of racism continue to rise. It remains the most common form of discrimination in both professional and grassroots football, constituting 65 per cent of reports – a 43 per cent rise from 2017/18.

Although an increase in reports could highlight a more confident approach to reporting incidents, the leap in reports could also identify that discrimination across the game is still an issue which needs ongoing and constant education and the application of appropriate sanctions. 

Faith-based discrimination, which includes Islamophobia and antisemitism, rose higher than any other across this period, with reports increasing by 75 per cent from 36 to 63.

Discrimination related to sexual orientation increased by 12 per cent from 61 to 68. Reports related to gender remained at the same level (eight), while disability discrimination reports dropped from 15 to nine.

In the overall figures, which include social media incidents, discrimination reports increased to 581, a 12 per cent rise from the season before (520).

The FA have not informed Kick It Out of the outcome in seventy-nine per cent of the 109 cases reported in grassroots football. Forty per cent of these reports were from youth football (under-18). Of this figure, The FA have not informed Kick It Out of 80 per cent of the County FA verdicts.

Discrimination reports in the professional game rose by 46 per cent to 313, with an outcome received in 62 per cent of cases.

The statistics are compiled from all levels of English football, including the Premier League, English Football League (EFL), FA Women’s Super League, non-league and grassroots fixtures.

The 2018/19 season saw a change in the way online discrimination is recorded.

The organisation received 159 discrimination reports from social media in 2018/19. Again, the most common form of reported incidents was racism (62 per cent).

Statistics from Kick It Out, football’s equality and inclusion organisation, reveal an increase in reports for the sixth consecutive year.

Racism constituted 53 per cent of them during the 2017/18 season, a rise of 22 per cent from the previous year.

The charity received a total of 520 reports for this period, up by 11 per cent from 469 in 2016/17.

Disability discrimination reports rose higher than any other in 2017/18, increasing by 107 per cent from 14 to 29.

Ten per cent of all reports concerned antisemitism.

The statistics are compiled from all levels of the game, including the Premier League, English Football League (EFL), FA Women’s Super League, non-league and grassroots fixtures.

Reports from social media, which was the most popular reporting method, are also included.

Cases reported at EFL matches have risen by 30 per cent, and across the entire professional game there was a 10 per cent increase overall from 194 in 2016/17 to 214 in 2017/18.

Grassroots discrimination reports rose by 35 per cent across the same period, with racism (71 per cent) and disability (33 per cent) the most common forms of discrimination reported.

469 (16.7% INCREASE COMPARED TO 2015/16)

Previous seasons for comparison:

2012/13: 77 INCIDENTS
2013/14: 284 INCIDENTS
2014/15: 393 INCIDENTS
2015/16: 402 INCIDENTS

TYPE OF DISCRIMINATION:
Race – 225 (48%), HBT (Homophobic, Biphobic and Transphobic) – 98 (21%), Faith – 81 (17%), Gender – 42 (9%), Disability – 14 (3%), Other – 9 (2%)

AREA OF GAME:
Social media – 197 (42%), Professional game – 194 (41%), Grassroots – 78 incidents (17%

For the purposes of this report, professional game covers all Premier League, EFL and non-league clubs and leagues down to Step 4 of the National League System

PROFESSIONAL GAME INCIDENTS – INVOLVING FANS
194 incidents

Type of discrimination: Race – 105 (54%), Faith – 41 (21%), HBT – 34 (18%), Gender – 6 (3%), Disability – 3 (2%), Other – 5 (2%).

PROFESSIONAL GAME INCIDENTS – INVOLVING PARTICIPANTS (PLAYERS, MANAGERS AND CLUB STAFF)
12 incidents

Type of discrimination: Race – 4 (33%) , Gender – 3 (25%), HBT – 2 (17%), Disability – 2 (17%), Faith – 1 (8%).

GRASSROOTS INCIDENTS
78 incidents

Type of discrimination: Race – 48 (62%), Faith – 8 (10%), HBT – 7 (9%), Disability – 6 (8%), Sexism – 4 (5%), Other – 5 (6%).

SOCIAL MEDIA INCIDENTS (FOOTBALL-RELATED DISCRIMINATION)
197 incidents

Type of discrimination: Race – 71 (36%), HBT – 58 (29%), Gender – 32 (16%), Faith – 31 (16%), Disability – 5 (3%).