OneFootball Community Guidelines

Version 2.0 - Effective August 2026

Thank you for being part of the OneFootball community. We welcome your comments, live chat messages and discussions, and we want OneFootball to be a place where football fans can connect, debate and celebrate the game in a respectful, inclusive and safe environment.

Our Vision

OneFootball brings fans closer to the biggest clubs, leagues, federations and players in football.

We want to build a home for football fans: a place to share the magic, passion and love we all feel for the game, to connect with each other, and to celebrate football together.

Our goal is to create one of the best fan experiences in the world - a football community where everyone feels welcome.

What We Stand For

Respect is at the heart of football, and it is at the heart of our community.

We encourage fans to share opinions, personal experiences and football perspectives. Strong debate is welcome. Personal attacks, abuse and unsafe behaviour are not.

Football stirs strong emotions, and we know it. Reacting to a bad refereeing decision or venting about your team's performance is part of the culture - what matters is that the emotion stays aimed at the game, not at people.

These Guidelines apply to all user-generated content on OneFootball, including comments, live chat messages, usernames and other interactive features.

Community Rules

To keep OneFootball safe, lawful and enjoyable for everyone, please follow these rules.

1. Be Respectful

Treat other users, players, clubs, referees, journalists, staff and public figures with respect. Do not post personal attacks, targeted abuse, bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, intimidation or coordinated attacks.

Passion vs. personal attacks

✅ Acceptable

  • “Haaland is shit today.” (Crude, but this is a standard hyperbolic critique of sporting ability/form. It focuses on the football.)

  • “I hope the ref gets fired for that.” (Wishing professional consequences for poor performance is allowed. Football is a results business.)

  • “Are you f***ing kidding me? That’s never a penalty in a million years.” (Swearing at a situation/decision).

❌ Not acceptable

  • Directing degrading insults or slurs at a person's character rather than their performance (e.g. calling the referee a “[expletive]”).

  • Swearing or insults aimed directly at another user (e.g. “you're an idiot if you think that was a dive”).

  • Wishing personal/physical harm is strictly forbidden, unlike wishing professional consequences (e.g. “I hope the ref breaks his legs.”)

Fair criticism vs. harassment

✅ Acceptable

  • “I disagree with this article - the underlying numbers suggest they created more high-quality chances and were just unlucky.”

  • “I think you're looking at this with a biased view - did you watch the second half?”

❌ Not acceptable

  • Attacking a journalist personally instead of engaging with their argument (e.g. calling the writer “clueless” or “braindead”).

  • Following a user into unrelated comment sections just to keep attacking them.

2. No Hate Speech or Discrimination

We have zero tolerance for hate speech. Do not post slurs, dehumanising language, hateful stereotypes, extremist content, or attacks based on characteristics such as nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or similar protected characteristics.

✅ Acceptable

  • “He is so lazy tracking back, absolutely stealing a living right now.” (Harsh, but purely about football).

  • “She has terrible decision-making in the final third.”

❌ Not acceptable

  • Racist symbols, emojis or comparisons directed at players (e.g. monkey emojis aimed at Black players).

  • Xenophobic comments (e.g. “go back to your own country”).

  • Homophobic or sexist slurs directed at players, referees, journalists or pundits.

⚠ Historic tragedies - zero tolerance

  • Discussion of football tragedies (such as Hillsborough, the Munich air disaster, Heysel or Superga) is only permitted when it is respectful, factual or commemorative.

  • Mocking these events, using coded chants associated with them, using imagery that references them (such as plane emojis directed at clubs affected by air disasters), or mocking the death of a player or fan will result in immediate, permanent removal from OneFootball.

  • There is no acceptable version of this content - this rule allows no exceptions.

3. No Threats or Violence

Do not threaten, encourage or glorify violence, self-harm, serious injury or criminal conduct. This includes threats against players, referees, clubs, staff, other users or any other person.

✅ Acceptable

  • “I hope the referee doesn't take charge of another game after that performance.” (wishing professional consequences)

❌ Not acceptable

  • “I hope he breaks his leg.” Any wish or threat of physical harm toward a real person is not permitted, however the “hope” is framed.

4. No Spam, Scams or Manipulation

Do not post spam, repeated messages, advertising, phishing, fake giveaways, ticket scams, malware, bot activity, vote manipulation, or irrelevant promotional content. Do not use comments or live chat to drive users to unrelated websites or products, e.g. “Check out my FIFA Twitch stream guys! [Link]” (Self-promotion in a match chat).

✅ Acceptable

  • “GOALLLL!” followed closely by “What a finish!” - fast, genuine reactions to the action.

  • A string of 🔥 emojis after a great piece of skill.

❌ Not acceptable

  • Posting the exact same message many times in a row (e.g. “SACK THE MANAGER!” repeated 15 times).

  • Self-promotion (e.g. “check out my stream, link below”).

  • Blocks of random characters or ASCII art that push other people's messages off the screen.

5. Keep It Appropriate for a General Audience

Do not post NSFW content, explicit sexual content, graphic violence, vulgar abuse, or other content unsuitable for a broad football audience.

6. Protect Minors

Do not post content that exploits, endangers, grooms, bullies, harasses or targets minors. Do not make sexualised comments about minors or try to obtain private contact with minors.

7. Protect Privacy

Do not share personal information about others without permission, including addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, private images, identity documents, location information or private messages.

8. No Defamation or False Allegations

Do not post false factual allegations, serious accusations without basis, abusive insults, or content that unlawfully harms another person's reputation or personality rights.

9. No Impersonation

Do not impersonate players, clubs, referees, leagues, federations, journalists, OneFootball staff, brands or other users. Usernames must not mislead others about who you are.

10. Stay Legal

Do not post content that violates applicable law or encourages others to do so.

Reporting Content

We rely on our community to help keep OneFootball safe. If you see content that may be illegal or violates these Guidelines, please use the report function next to the relevant comment or live chat message.

We will review reports and may take action where appropriate. For privacy and safety reasons, we may not always be able to share details about actions taken against another user.

Moderation and Enforcement

We may use automated tools, including AI-assisted moderation systems, and human review to help enforce these Guidelines. These tools may detect, flag, delay, hide, restrict or remove content, and may help prioritise reports for review.

If you violate these Guidelines, we may take action, including removing your content, issuing a warning, restricting access to comments or live chat, temporally or permanently terminating access, or escalating serious matters where legally required or appropriate.

As a general guide, enforcement scales with the severity of the violation:

VIOLATION TYPICAL ACTION

Off-topic comments, minor spam Content removed

Insults, trolling, unfair personal attacks on journalists Removal + warning

Flooding live chat / spam messages Mute / temporally restriction

Repeated hate speech, discrimination, threats of violence, targeted harassment Immediate, permanent suspension

If you believe we made a mistake in moderating your content or restricting your account, you may challenge the decision through our appeal process.

We may update these Guidelines from time to time to reflect new features, legal requirements or community safety needs.

Thank you for helping us keep OneFootball a great place for football fans. 

Version: 2/2026

Last updated: August 2026