Cancer charity KWF Kankerbestrijding is launching a new campaign to stop the use of the word ‘cancer’ as a term of abuse around football games, both online and at venues.

A special badge for amateur players and a digital football shirt are part of the campaign. Cancer, and other diseases, are a feature of Dutch swearwords, particularly among the young. It appears as KK or KKR in many online comments, the charity said.

‘It has got to stop because it is simply very hurtful,’ KWF spokesman Bert van Plateringen told the AD.

The popular international online football game FIFA21 will feature anti KK slogans on the shirts of players like Messi, Mbappé, Ronaldo and Neymar from Tuesday. Some 1.2 million people in the Netherlands play the game.

Well-known Youtubers have also become involved because ‘they are better able to reach young people and spread the message. We don’t want to point the finger at the young as a group,’ Van Plateringen said.

‘One in three people in the Netherlands are diagnosed with cancer,’ KWF director Johan van Gronden said, ‘and most people will directly or directly face the consequences of that diagnosis.’

‘Young people use the word all the time but they forget what it does to others. To use it any old way is not done,’ Youtuber Noah Zeeuw told the paper.

It is not the first time the KWF has campaigned to raise awareness around the word cancer as a term of abuse but Van Plateringen remains hopeful. ‘It will take time but we hope we reach lots of football players.’