In January 2021, our player Reece James suffered disgusting and unacceptable racist abuse on social media. This was not an isolated incident. Several of our players have been, and continue to be, the targets of hate and discrimination online. We as a club decided we will not tolerate this any longer. We agreed with our players that something needed to change, in football and beyond.

Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich directed the club to increase our efforts to fight racism and committed to personally directing funds towards this important work. As a result of this directive from Mr Abramovich, we launched the No To Hate campaign.

No To Hate is club-wide, involving all departments and areas of the club – from the owner to the players, staff and fans. No To Hate covers three key areas:

1. Targeting online hate and those that abuse our club and players2. Celebrating our history and outlining why abusers shame our club and the game3. Changing the culture of the game

What have we done?

Since the launch of the campaign in March this year, No To Hate’s goals have been actioned across the club and within our communities, both in person and online. Here are our milestones so far:

Social Media Policy

We released a new Social Media Policy for fans to provide guidance on engaging with the Club, our players, staff and other fans on social media. This policy set out the action we will take, and the action we ask fans to take, in response to online discriminatory abuse.

Monitoring our channels

We engaged the early warning risk intelligence agency Crisp to help us identify, report and, where possible and dependent on platform functionality, remove hateful and discriminatory posts. Crisp also help us by offering our players individual and bespoke support to identify and report hateful and discriminatory comments posted to their digital channels.

Targeting abusers

We have enhanced existing club resources by utilising the services of external specialists to search open source data and assist in identifying abusers. Where appropriate, we have taken action ourselves by banning abusers from the club, offering restorative justice programmes and, in some cases, reporting abusers to law enforcement.

Raising awareness on the dangers of online hate

We kickstarted the season by taking a stand against racism and discrimination with a new film that highlights the harmful and dangerous effects of online abuse. The film, which you can watch above, shows three young people dealing with the effects of online abuse. Though the type of abuse the young people face is different – ranging between homophobia, sexism and racism – we saw the same destructive effects. The film aimed to both highlight the impact online abuse is having on our society, as well as encourage everyone to be part of stamping back, by reporting abuse whenever they see it.

Photo Competition

Football has a unique way of making a positive impact in society. It can cross borders, social boundaries and economic barriers, uniting people in their love for their team and the game. So, we launched a photo competition inviting our fans worldwide to help us demonstrate just that. In partnership with photographer Mel D. Cole (founder of the first black-owned football specific photo agency, Charcoal Pitch F.C), we are asking fans to share photos which demonstrates the diversity of the Chelsea community and the role football has in promoting tolerance.

- Click here for more info and to enter

To promote the competition, players Romelu Lukaku, Magdalena Eriksson and Jess Carter, as well as Chelsea Women manager Emma Hayes, sat down with CNN to talk about the state of racism and online abuse in the game and how it affects them and their team-mates. Lukaku called on social media companies to take more responsibility to tackle hate on their channels.

This Is Us – Celebrating our black players

Through the Foundation’s education programmes in our network of schools, we have worked to deliver No To Hate sessions in school. These sessions educate school-aged children about the importance of diversity and inclusion, while also demonstrating the harmful effects of hate and discrimination.

Part of this work involved celebrating Chelsea’s black players throughout our history, with children creating ‘Player Profiles’ of these club icons. To celebrate this work, we have created the book This Is Us, featuring the work of Foundation schools as well as illustrations of 20 of Chelsea’s black heroes, illustrated by young black female artist, Zem Clarke.

Enhanced opportunities for black, Asian and female coaches

Chelsea Foundation teamed up with the FA to announce an extension of funding for FA Mentee Development Programme. This funding creates new opportunities for coaches from black, Asian and historically under-represented ethnic communities and females to tackle the lack of representation within the game. The Foundation has provided funding for the initiative for the previous five years. The revamped initiative will offer the chance for male participants with UEFA B licences or female coaches with a minimum of a Level 2 qualification to gain practical experience and enhanced qualifications. As part of the programme, two places were made available for Chelsea coaches to participate.

Accelerating opportunities for journalists from under-represented groups

The Chelsea FC Foundation teamed up with The Black Collective of Media in Sport (BCOMS), an organisation on a mission to diversify the sports media in the UK, to offer aspiring sports journalists from under-represented backgrounds free access to journalistic qualifications. For the past 18 months the club has collaborated with BCOMS to provide a press seat at each home game for their students, helping provide professional access and opportunity to young aspiring journalists who might otherwise not have the chance to attend, experience and report on elite football.

The bursary will completely cover the cost of an NCTJ qualification as well as offering a contribution towards living costs for two aspiring journalists.

Bringing civil society together to tackle key issues

We continue to host events with key leaders tackling hate crime, antisemitism and racism both nationally and internationally. Our most recent event, ‘Tackling Hate Crime in a Digital World’ was hosted in partnership with the ADL and was an opportunity to bring together leaders in the field, sharing best practice and effective models in tackling hate crime. Featuring a wide range of speakers from Chelsea FC, ADL, Crisp, the Met Police, the Institute on Strategic Dialogue, Community Security Trust and Kick It Out, the lunch provided insight for all on the work being done nationally and internationally to tackle hate crime.

While we are proud of the work across the club so far, we know that more needs to be done. We will be tireless in our fight to stop racism both on and off the pitch. Whether it be at our games, in our local communities or online - hate, racism and discrimination will never be accepted at Chelsea and we ask our fans everywhere to join us as we say No To Hate.