BBC viewers tuning in to England’s World Cup clash with DR Congo on Wednesday evening were left staring at a black screen just as the Three Lions launched a dangerous attack early in the second half. The brief technical glitch, which lasted only seconds, prompted a torrent of sarcastic and exasperated posts on social media. “Probably for the best BBC has cut out,” one user joked, while another demanded: “BBC what was that?????” The interruption came after a first-half already thick with controversy: England were trailing 1-0 to Brian Cipenga’s seventh-minute strike and had been denied what felt like a clear penalty when Harry Kane went down in the box under contact from goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi. Referee Adham Makhadmeh instead awarded a free-kick to DR Congo for diving, a decision upheld by VAR. Alan Shearer, providing analysis for the BBC, disagreed: “There’s contact, there’s no doubt. That for me is a penalty.”
The technical mishap, however, is not the only ugly side of this World Cup. Fifa’s social media protection service (SMPS) has reported a “significant increase” in the most serious racist abuse online during the tournament. Across the 72 group-stage matches, 89,000 abusive posts were identified – a 13-fold jump from the 6,700 recorded during the 2022 World Cup, when only 48 matches were played in Qatar. Racism accounted for 11% of all online abuse, a 3% rise on four years ago. More than 100 examples met the legal threshold for preparing case files. The SMPS warned that “data trends show a concerning direction of travel in terms of racially aggravated abuse”, even as detection methods have improved. The Netherlands’ Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) confirmed that Justin Kluivert, Quinten Timber and Crysencio Summerville – the three players who missed penalties in their last-32 shootout defeat to Morocco – were subjected to discriminatory, racist and hateful comments. In total, over six million posts and comments were scanned, with 225,000 flagged for human review, around 1,000 accounts identified for further investigation, and 181,000 hateful comments hidden. The SMPS said there had been a “significant increase in the objectively worst, most offensive material.”
“BBC glitch cuts England coverage; Fifa reports 13-fold rise in racist abuse at World Cup.”