On 20 April, pockets of Rapid Vienna and AGF Arhus fans unfurled banners to celebrate the birthday of a man whose name should bear no relation to the beautiful game: Adolf Hitler. But these incidents in Austria and Denmark are not isolated. Football stadiums have long been a refuge – and often a campaigning ground – for far-right sympathisers. Efforts to root them out have met with some success – as in the United Kingdom – but in many others the terraces are still not free of the monkey noises, fascist salutes and thuggery that blight the sport.
More attention has been paid to the problem of racism in football in recent years – at the same time as the issue has begun to rise up the agenda of the European Union. In March 2006 a European Parliament resolution called for tougher sanctions for racial abuse on and off the pitch.
Penalties
A few days later, the world football federation, FIFA, introduced severe penalties for acts of racism into its disciplinary code, include deduction of points and disqualification from competitions. A July 2007 European Commission white paper on sport underlined the need to counter football racism and violence by “promoting and facilitating dialogue with member states, international organisations, sport organisations, law enforcement services and other stakeholders”. Four months later an EU conference brought together top- level European officials and politicians to discuss with Michel Platini, the president of the European football federation, UEFA, coordinated action between the key actors in European football. And early this summer an EU decision on racism and xenophobia will make punishable any acts that incite violence or hatred “by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin”.
But Emine Bozkurt, the MEP who initiated and co-wrote the 2006 resolution, says the battle is not yet won. “In some countries the recommendations are taken up and in others barely anything is done. While I was campaigning for my resolution, too many people said that racism was ‘just a part of the game'. When you do nothing, the message is that it's okay to be like that. But football, in a way, reflects society.”
Christopher Heaton-Harris MEP, one of the other four co-authors of the report and the current president of the Sports Intergroup in the European Parliament, favours EU initiatives in sport when it comes to racism - although he insists: “It is something that has to change at the level of society. And the role of the football associations, UEFA and FARE is crucial”.
Kick it out
FARE is the little-known Football Against Racism in Europe, a network of national organisations including ‘Kick It Out' in the UK and FairPlay in Austria that oversees projects to help eradicate all forms of discrimination in football. At next month's European Championships in Austria and Switzerland it will spread its message through its ‘Unite Against Racism' logo on t-shirts, posters and the one million-plus tickets on sale, as well as through a television slot before each game and an anti-racism announcement by team captains prior to kick-off in the two semi-finals.
Its smaller projects also combat racism at its roots, increasingly in eastern European countries with embedded prejudice. ‘Football is Getting Us Together' sets up tournaments for mixed Roma and non-Roma teams in Slovakia, and a media campaign initiated by MEP Valeriu Nicolae – ‘Racism Breaks the Game', tackling prejudice against Gypsies in Romania – led to a UEFA cup-tie between Steaua and Rapid Bucharest played without any racist banners or chants.
Bananas
Much remains to be done. The club president of Polish Legia Warsaw has admitted that a fifth of its fans are neo-Nazis, and Zimbabwean international Dixon Choto has reported regular abuse – most commonly thrown bananas and monkey noises – when he plays in the Polish league. With Poland and Ukraine hosting the next European Championships in 2012, anti-racism campaigners acknowledge that they face an uphill struggle.
