Jess Carter: England defender speaks after stepping back from social media due to racism during Euro 2025
Jess Carter has spoken for the first time since revealing she has been the target of racist abuse on social media at Euro 2025; the England defender was named on the bench for the semi-final win against Italy but came on as a substitute
Friday 25 July 2025 22:32, UK
Jess Carter has revealed the weight of racist abuse she endured during Euro 2025 caused her to speak out and seek the support of her England team-mates.
Carter revealed prior to England's semi-final win over Italy that she had stepped back from social media, having been subjected to racist slurs since the tournament began.
Analysis of social media posts made during the game with Sweden confirmed Carter was the England player targeted with the most negativity.
- Scale of online abuse directed at Jess Carter revealed
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Carter came on as a late substitute in the semi-final win against Italy and was given a huge ovation by the England fans.
She told Sky Sports News: "It's been pretty tough. Ever since the France game it started, and it was pretty tough.
"A lot of stuff doesn't really bother me, so [it took a lot] for me to feel like I needed to speak up and for people to know about it. I felt like I needed a bit of support and a bit of extra TLC from my team, that I don't usually need.
"I'm not saying it's going to make a big difference or make a change, but hopefully make people aware that it's not OK.
"Racism is still going on, and we're just here to do our job to the best of our ability and hopefully bring success back to England. That's what we all try and do every time we put the badge on.
"I understand everyone has got their own opinions on how we play - trust me, no one is more disappointed in some of my performances than I am - but the colour of my skin has nothing to do with that.
"The fans today were unbelievable, and their support was incredible. I can't thank them all enough for being on my side.
"It was my team that encouraged me to put it out [the statement]. I was like, 'I'll just let it go and see afterwards', but we do what we do to represent ourselves and our country.
"I've got mixed-race nieces and nephews, I want them to grow up to be strong and brave and powerful and believe they can do whatever they want to do.
"If by speaking up it makes one silly person keep their mouth shut with certain comments, that's a big enough reason for me."
Alongside a statement released on Carter's Instagram, a separate post from her Lionesses team-mates said it was "not right that some of us are treated differently because of the colour of our skin." The Lionesses did not take the knee before the semi-final with Italy.
The FA, meanwhile, contacted the UK police when they were informed of the abuse Carter has been subjected to, and CEO Mark Bullingham confirmed the social media platform used had also been alerted.
Bullingham told Sky News the FA would consider boycotting social media over racism and said platforms have "avoided responsibility".
Bullingham said: "Our general perspective is that those companies have really avoided the responsibility for this over the last few years, they should be taking.
"Our hope is that with the new online safety legislation, Ofcom can now bring personal and corporate accountability, so that we see real change. We haven't seen that in the last few years. We would like to see it now."
Instagram's owners Meta took five days to respond publicly to the racism suffered by Carter. In a statement, Meta said: "No one should be subjected to racist abuse and we remove this content when we find it.
"We're surprised to read these comments [from Mr Bullingham] since we have been working directly with the FA and UEFA both before and during this tournament.
"We have proactively removed a number of violating comments and taken action against accounts which break our rules.
"We've also developed several tools to help protect people from having to see abuse, including Hidden Words which filters offensive comments and DMs.
"No one thing will stop racist behaviour overnight, but we'll continue working to protect our community from abuse and cooperate with police investigations."
Alessia Russo added to Sky Sports News: "Jess should never have gone through what she has the past few days, but we stick with her and back our players 100 per cent.
"Jess is a top person, someone who is a massive part of this team, and we all love her so much. She's shown massive strength, and the team is always with her."
