The debate over impunity on social networks and the responsibility of platforms has been reopened in the United Kingdom after a "horrific" weekend in which at least four Premier League football players received racist insults online.

"We are in 2026, and it's still the same; nothing changes," Chelsea defender Wesley Fofana denounced on his Instagram account.

The French footballer shared hundreds of messages with racist content that he received on Instagram after Chelsea's 1-1 draw against Burnley, a match in which he was sent off.

From some of those anonymous accounts, he was compared to "a monkey" that should be in "a zoo."

During the weekend, Burnley's Tunisian international Hannibal Mejbri, Englishman Romaine Mundle of Sunderland, and Nigerian Tolu Arokodare of Wolverhampton also received racist insults through social networks.

It is "unbelievable" that people have "so much freedom to express racism like that, without any consequences," protested the Wolves player, who became a target of attacks on social media after his missed penalty in the loss against Crystal Palace.

His club said it was "sickened" by the situation and stated it was "firmly by his side, as well as by the side of all footballers forced to endure this abuse from anonymous accounts that act with apparent impunity."

"This weekend has been horrific...," Kick It Out, the main association fighting discrimination in English football, also commented, "but the sad reality is that we know this happens regularly."

In just one weekend last November, more than 2,000 particularly violent messages were published on social networks against coaches and players from the top men's (Premier League) and women's (Women's Super League) divisions, including messages with death threats and rape threats, according to a BBC investigation.

Asked by the British audiovisual group, Chelsea's French coach, Sonia Bompastor, pointed then to social media platforms, which "are not doing their job, they are not taking responsibility or fulfilling their obligations."

That same day, Chelsea announced a collaboration between its women's section and the group Signify, whose Threat Matrix tool allows for the identification of accounts from which these abuses are committed.

Arsenal, which has used this service for five years, has banned access to the stadium for about 30 fans between 2021 and 2025 for various reasons (racism, homophobia, death threats, etc.), according to club figures compiled by AFP.

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