June ⁠18 (Reuters) - Captains at Thursday’s World Cup fixtures ⁠will exchange special pennants denouncing discrimination to ‌mark the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, as FIFA revealed it has blocked hundreds of thousands of abusive ​posts during the tournament.

The pre-match exchange ⁠will feature in ⁠all four of the day’s fixtures: Czech Republic against ⁠South ‌Africa, Mexico against South Korea, Switzerland against Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Canada against Qatar. Organisers ⁠confirmed the pennants will bear the slogan “We ​Play Together. ‌We Stand Against Hate,” written in English ⁠on one ​side and the teams’ native languages on the reverse.

The initiative comes as football’s world governing body ⁠battles escalating online abuse. FIFA reported ​that its automated social media protection service, launched ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, has ⁠removed more than 30 million abusive posts and comments to date.

Since June 11, the service has deleted 388,000 harmful posts at the 2026 ​tournament, already eclipsing the 287,000 ⁠removals recorded across the entire 2022 event.

Officials added that ​further anti-discrimination campaigns and ‌stadium activations are scheduled to ​run throughout Thursday's match schedule.

(Reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk; Editing by Toby Chopra)