The Government and social media companies have been urged to end “a culture of impunity” on online abuse days before the start of the World Cup.

Kick It Out chair Sanjay Bhandari has written an open letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, along with Twitter and Facebook bosses Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, calling on them to provide greater online protection to football players, staff and fans.

The anti-discrimination group estimates discriminatory abuse could be viewed over two billion times during the finals, which works out at around 800 people witnessing abuse online every second of every day of the tournament, based on social engagement data from the last men’s World Cup in 2018.

Bhandari wrote: “We all hope that the social engagement around the tournament will be positive and that the people who play, watch and work in the game will be protected from racism, homophobia, misogyny, and other discriminatory abuse.

“However, to expect that would be the triumph of hope over bitter experience. We all know that abuse will happen. It is just a question of when, who is targeted, the scale and viciousness of the abuse and the scale of the harm it will cause.

“A culture of impunity has developed on social media with a lack of meaningful consequences. You have the ability to change this. We are calling on you to do so.”