Players will come together in solidarity ahead of our fixture at Wolves, wearing t-shirts that display a very clear message during the warm-up – Spurs Against Racism.
We want to make it clear to the world that if anyone thinks it’s okay to racially abuse our players, we will take the strongest possible action and we have a track record that backs this up.
What we do
We work with specialist third parties and adopt sophisticated tools dedicated to protecting our players, staff and wider members of our Spurs family from the scourge of online abuse:
• B5 Consultancy provides player education, advice and assistance in investigating and taking action in relation to online hate, helping us to identify individuals.
• Respondology provides full comment moderation across the Club’s official social media channels (with the exception of X, which does not permit use of the tool), automatically removing hateful and abusive responses on Club posts to protect the fan experience.
• Signify Group employs it’s Threat Matrix service, a specialist AI-led monitoring system backed by expert analysts who monitor online abuse across the wider social media ecosystem 24/7. They detect abuse targeting our players and staff as it happens, investigate the most egregious accounts and identify perpetrators.
Findings are fed back through the Club’s legal, security and supporter engagement teams, who are able to cross-check identified perpetrators against our database. We have taken a leading role in developing a league-wide Data Sharing Agreement, allowing fellow clubs to take action against individuals we have identified with a known football allegiance.
Any Club sanction will then be determined in line with our own Sanctions & Banning Policy. We will involve the UK Football Policing Unit where comments have crossed a criminal threshold and work with the Premier League to assist us in pursuing cases in international territories outside of our jurisdiction.
Results
Over recent seasons, we have successfully secured criminal convictions following abuse of our staff and players, including individuals based overseas, and have also issued indefinite Club bans. In all instances, we will liaise closely with the targeted person to understand what action they are comfortable with being taken.
Using the League-wide data sharing agreement, we have shared information with other Premier League clubs promptly which has enabled those clubs to take action against its supporters (which has included criminal convictions and indefinite Club bans).
• Working with the Premier League we achieved a criminal conviction in Germany for racist abuse against one of our players.
• We worked with the police to achieve resolutions with teenage boys who have abused our players on Instagram, liaising closely with their schools and parents to obtain apologies and deliver education.
• We have tracked down further individuals in Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Philippines and Brazil, using local lawyers to obtain written apologies.
• As widely reported, back in 2023, we worked with the Met Police to appeal against an initial ruling to secure a three-year football banning order against an opposition fan found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence against Heung-Min Son during a match at our stadium.
In relation to the sickening abuse suffered by Kevin Danso last weekend, we have reported all identified content to the Metropolitan Police and to the appropriate authorities in the countries where perpetrators reside, as well as to relevant social media platforms.
We have already had posts removed, social media accounts suspended and, in some cases, have requested that the platforms permanently remove accounts. We have IDs of perpetrators and are cross-checking the Club’s database, as well as liaising with other clubs where an allegiance is identified. We are taking legal advice to determine where it may be necessary to pursue banning orders and, where applicable, criminal prosecutions.
Kevin, meanwhile, continues to receive the Club’s complete and unconditional support, and has bravely taken the step to speak out publicly this week about his experience.
The wider problem
It is 2026 – yet we are still having these conversations.
In just the past five years, the Premier League has investigated more than 4,000 cases of racist abuse, with legal action brought against abusers across three continents.
Kick It Out’s latest reported data from the 2024/25 season revealed the charity received 1,398 reports of discrimination, marking a continued rise from the previous season (1,332) and the highest figure it has ever recorded. 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.
We commend the work being done across the game to tackle the scourge of discrimination, while recognising there is so much more that needs to be done. We again call on X, Instagram and all social platforms to act quickly and decisively when racist abuse is reported. We also encourage anyone who sees abuse to report it directly to us at report@tottenhamhotspur.com so we can take the strongest possible action in line with the steps outlined above.
We will not stop – we will continue to take a stand and demonstrate unwavering support for our players in the face of unacceptable discrimination.
There is no place for racism at Tottenham Hotspur. There is no place for racism in football.