A global survey has revealed that more than half of fans have witnessed incidents of racist abuse at games.

The results, released by the equality organisation Kick It Out and the live-score app Forza Football, reflect the views of nearly 27,000 supporters from 38 countries.

An average of 54% of respondents said they had witnessed racist abuse, with Peruvian fans reporting the highest incidence at 77% and Dutch supporters the lowest at 38%.

Half of UK fans said they had witnessed abuse but only 40% said they would know how to report it, against a global figure of 28%.

Lord Ouseley, the chairman of Kick It Out, said: “If you were asking this question 10 years ago, certainly 25 years ago, about how many fans had witnessed racist abuse it probably would have been about 90%, so the fact it’s 50% is both disappointing and pleasing, because we’ve moved and are moving in the right direction.

“What is disappointing is only around 40% know what to do about it. That’s critical in terms of where we want to take football. We want football clubs and the authorities to be doing a lot more.

“Around every football club there should be signs everywhere, there should be opportunities for people to download apps and complain either to clubs directly or to Kick It Out, or to the FA or the appropriate league.”

Fans were also asked whether they would feel comfortable with a player of a different ethnic or racial background to them representing their club or country, with an average of 84% saying they would.

Fans in Norway (95%), Sweden (94%), and Brazil (93%) felt the most comfortable, but it was a different story in the Middle East in particular. Only 11% of fans in Saudi Arabia said they would feel comfortable, while the figures for Lebanon (15%) and the United Arab Emirates (19%) were also very low. More than 20% of Germans, Spaniards and Italians also said they would feel uncomfortable.

There was strong support from fans globally both for teams to face points deductions for incidents of racist abuse (61%) and for governing bodies to take previous racist abuse into account when deciding where to stage international tournaments (74%).