The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) announced on Saturday that its social media protection service, aimed at protecting players, teams, and officials from online threats and abuse, has detected more than seven million posts potentially containing harmful or abusive content on social media platforms during the World Cup.

FIFA noted that the detection rate increased 14 times compared to the 2022 edition, during which about 470,000 such posts were identified and removed.

The social media protection service team reviewed more than 500,000 messages detected by artificial intelligence technologies that targeted players, coaches, and officials during the current tournament, and also reported more than a thousand threats to authorities, including law enforcement agencies.

The team has monitored more than 53 million posts and comments since the start of the World Cup, which concludes on Sunday with the final match between Argentina and Spain.

Earlier this month, FIFA reported that racist abuse accounted for about 11 percent of all abusive messages detected during the tournament so far.