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13 May 2026: Athletes, coaches, referees, grassroots participants – no one is off limits when it comes to online abuse in the sporting world, and the negative effects flow much further than the target of the abuse.
Managing online abuse and increasing the safe access to sport participation is no simple task, but University of Canberra researchers, co-funded by Sport Integrity Australia, have developed a series of recommendations sporting bodies can draw from to mitigate the abuse and safeguard their participants.
While online abuse is a broader societal issue, the researchers noted it’s particularly prevalent in sport due to factors including live audiences, gambling and normalised aggression, and that women and participants with marginalised identities can disproportionately experience it.
Dr Joanna Wall Tweedie, the lead researcher from UC’s Research Institute for Sport and Exercise (UCRISE), said there is “no magic bullet” for combatting online abuse, but recognising the issue and knowing there are strategies that can be employed are the first steps.
“The presumption is often that sport organisations have to do something really extreme and really expensive or there's nothing they can do,” she said.
“But there are ways in which they can identify inflection points to intervene – such as directly removing the abuse or offering psychological support where required. The other piece is just making sure that participants know there is something that can be done.”
Dr Tweedie also stressed the importance of incorporating a participant voice in developing mitigating strategies.
The research, co-authored by Aaron C.T. Smith and Catherine Ordway, examined a sample of 19 Australian and international major sporting organisations and player associations.
The study looked at their approaches to addressing online abuse, identified common triggers and factors contributing to abuse, as well as barriers and conduits to intervening strategies to recommend a suite of approaches to mitigate online abuse.
“The organisations we examined have taken that first step of asking ‘what does online abuse look like for my sport?’ and while they’re all at different stages of addressing it, there are some really good, proactive measures being taken,” Dr Tweedie said.
Measuring online abuse, be it through surveys, focus groups or even with artificial intelligence via data science firms, is an important step.
The research also found resources – financial and human – are a major constraint on an organisation’s ability to respond to, prevent or manage online abuse.
Dr Tweedie said if effort is put into understanding how the problem is manifesting in the sport and potential triggers of the abuse, some interventions don’t need a lot of resources.
She pointed to an example of one sporting organisation that found referees would see a spike in abuse after press conferences if coaching staff commented on their decisions or performance.
“They put mechanisms in place to allow dialogue between the coaching staff and the players and referees, to review matches away from the public setting of the press conference,” she said.
“That also had a really positive flow-on effect in terms of more transparency around decisions that are made.”
The research suggested that online abuse can impact mental health and wellbeing, body image, and performance. It also raises safety fears and can cause withdrawal from social media – which can in turn affect sponsorships and promotion opportunities.
But Dr Tweedie says online abuse affects more people than just the targets, with the 'ripple effect' making it more important for sports to address it.
“If one athlete or participant is targeted, and if they have a high profile, that doesn't just impact that single person. It affects those people that care directly for the individual, others who care about the sport and those who witness it – and online abuse can be very public,” she said.
The researchers found a key element of mitigating abuse was victims having a willingness to report it, and simple reporting processes. But there was still a stigma that stopped people at all levels of participation from reporting abuse and accepting help.
“At the higher level, there's still a belief that this is part of the job, so that definitely can be a barrier to reporting it, while at the lower levels of sport, the barrier can be knowing how or where to report it,” Dr Tweedie said.
She said she was surprised at how widespread the problem was through sports, reaching all the way to the grassroots level.
“It is easy to think that just the big names are targeted. But it can impact anyone within a sport in different ways, so this really is a problem that all organisations must address. It's not just at the elite end of sport.”
Dr Tweedie said there was an appetite among the many sport organisations to work together to pool knowledge and resources to combat the issue.
The research paper Online abuse and better practice recommendations for Australian National Sporting Organisations and National Sporting Organisations for People with Disability has now been published by Sport Integrity Australia.
Professor Julien Périard, Director of UCRISE said the research reflects the Institute’s commitment to promoting equitable access to sport for all by addressing barriers to participation and inclusion, such as online abuse.
“Through evidence-based analysis and strong partnerships, including with Sport Integrity Australia, the work advances digital safeguarding in sport and supports broader goals of community wellbeing, participation, and social cohesion,” he said.
The University has designed next research steps that could further understanding of the impacts of online abuse in sport and evaluate the effectiveness of intervention strategies.
The full report can be found here.
