On Wednesday World rugby confirmed that “successful charges and law enforcement cases were pending in multiple jurisdictions” following on from a monitoring service during the 2023 Rugby World Cup. In this regard, police are said to beinvestigating a complaint from World Rugby that a New Zealander made an online threat to kill a Rugby World Cup referee. Match officials and their families also received abuse over private direct message, which led to law enforcement intervention. Evidence of a clear correlation between comments (online and offline) from players and coaches triggering online and in-ground abuse of match officials. Players were targeted with a wider variety of abuse types compared to match officials who received a much higher proportion of targeted abuse around gambling-related abuse.

Source: Stuff February 02, 2024 08:32 UTC