The Football Association of Wales has partnered with nisien.ai to strengthen the online safeguarding of players and officials across the women’s and men’s national teams.
The partnership, which began in September 2025, applies technology developed from Cardiff University’s HateLab research to a persistent challenge in international sport: harmful content and fast-moving narratives can intensify around fixtures, but conventional monitoring often identifies the problem only after the event.
Using the HERO platform, online conversations relating to players and officials can be assessed on an always-on, near-real-time basis. AI-supported classification and expert analysis distinguish hate, abuse, misinformation and emerging narratives from the much larger volume of ordinary football discussion.
Insight packs then turn those signals into evidence for safeguarding, communications and leadership teams. Where appropriate, that evidence can also support engagement with social-media platforms and relevant authorities.
Publicly reported results from the partnership include:
– 75,806 posts analysed;
– more than 50 players and officials monitored across squads and staff;
– 265 items escalated for review; and
– an average of 14.61% negative content across the games monitored.
The value of this approach lies not simply in counting negative messages, but in identifying what requires attention, who may be affected and what action is proportionate. This gives the FAW a consistent evidence base across fixtures and enables support to be considered earlier.
The work supports the FAW’s PAWB Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy and its commitment to safe, inclusive and welcoming environments across Welsh football.
It also marks an important development in the application of HateLab’s research. Earlier studies analysed online hate retrospectively around major tournaments. The FAW partnership shows how that evidence and technology can now contribute to continuing operational safeguarding.
Read the FAW case study