{"id":788,"date":"2011-06-15T06:21:31","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T06:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/memorial.local:8888\/www\/788.html"},"modified":"2011-08-09T12:15:44","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T12:15:44","slug":"euro-stars-speak-at-anti-racism-reception-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/news\/breaking-news\/euro-stars-speak-at-anti-racism-reception-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Euro stars speak at anti-racism reception"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-US\">News from FARE \u2013 Football Against Racism in Europe<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><span lang=\"EN-US\">9 June 2008<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/span><strong><span lang=\"EN-US\"><!--more--><br \/>\nEuro stars speak at anti-racism reception<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><span lang=\"EN-US\">In Basel representatives of UEFA and FARE \u2013 Football Against Racism in Europe came together with administrators, former footballers and non-governmental organisations to signal the beginning of a three-week anti-discrimination programme at UEFA EURO 2008\u2122. They pledged their overwhelming support to the Unite Against Racism campaign during a reception organised by FARE and supported by the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency \u2013 FRA at Basel\u2019s prestigious Hilton Hotel on Saturday, 7 June 2008.<strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>UEFA vice-president Senes Erzikunderlined:\u201cIt is probably not a very flattering sign for football or society as a whole that we are gathered here a few hours before the start of UEFA EURO 2008\u2122 to kick off the Unite Against Racism campaign. I think we all agree that, in an ideal world, we should be able to do so without such campaigns. But, given the circumstances, I believe it is a positive thing that representatives of the football family and other members of society have come together to unite against racism at the very beginning of this tournament. Racism and discrimination is a complex issue with many different forms and different targets. Discrimination is expressed against people for various reasons &#8211; skin colour, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender, religion and more. It is not simply a black and white issue.\u201d<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We cannot close our eyes to the problem that verbal and physical violence exists in the world and in football,&#8221; said <strong>Swiss federal council EURO delegate Benedikt Weibel<\/strong>.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The campaign has already been supported by many of the players participating in this years\u2019 competition, such as the Swiss captain, <strong>Alexander Frei<\/strong> who said: \u201cRacism and other forms of discrimination have no place in football. It\u2019s a game that can overcome borders and overlooks skin colour and ethnicity.\u201d<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The event saw four European stars and FARE ambassadors <strong>Yves Eigenrauch<script src=\"\"><\/script><\/strong>, <strong>Ramon Vega, Paul Elliott and Anthony Baffoe<\/strong>, take part in a Q&amp;A session aimed at drawing on their own collective experiences of discrimination they\u2019ve encountered whilst playing in Europe.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Vega, the once Swiss captain and Premiership star with Tottenham Hotspur, is of Italian decent. \u201cI played in the UK, both in England and Scotland, as well as France and Italy and I experienced discrimination in all of them. In the UK, I was the foreigner. This left me feeling very isolated. In Italy too, supporters and even fellow professionals targeted me for abuse. But football is a great leveller. This is why I am here, to help show what this great sport can do when bringing people together and stamping out racism.\u201d<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Elliott, former Chelsea, Celtic and Bari defender, said. The racism problem in the game is improving, but we still need to rely on law, and implementation of the law. Football brings people together and helps to deliver key social messages.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u201cI was one of the first generation of black players in the UK who received racist abuse of the ugliest kind. Banana throwing was commonplace. Now things are different but both individuals and agencies, like FARE; need to keep working together to maintain this progress.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ghana\u2019s <strong>Anthony Baffoe<\/strong>, the Bundesliga\u2019s first African player during his time with Cologne, added\u201d \u2018I used humour and irony to tackle racism during my time in Germany. Some fans liked it, others didn\u2019t, but it gave me respect. Now one only has to look at the leading players across Europe. Many of them are African. Drogba, Adebayor, Kanu. It makes me proud.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Baffoe played in many countries and was able to give his view on how racism from the terraces differed in different parts of the world. \u201cWhen I played in France, the racism was hidden away. This<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">came to the forefront when the French national team began to field more black players. Fans said that they no longer supported the team as these players weren\u2019t truly French, whereas in fact, they showed the world how multi-cultural France actually is.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Hong Kong, people were ignorant, despite the many ethnic backgrounds there. I was constantly stared at on public transport, which was uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Piara Powar<\/strong>, Director of FARE UK member, Kick It Out, also addressed the congregation, and said: \u201cThe last time we were gathered at the beginning of a European Championship, in Porto, we had many hopes and aspirations of what the FARE network was capable of achieving. I am delighted to say that since four years ago, we have managed to grow across the continent and the network is now active in 38 countries. Many of our aims have been met but there is still a long way to go before ridding our game of the cancer of racist abuse for good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The \u2018Unite Against Racism\u2019 programme, coordinated by the FARE network in conjunction with UEFA and supported of the professional players\u2019 union FIFPro, will run throughout the tournament. It will include the tv-spot \u201cDifferent Languages \u2013 One Goal: No To Racism\u201d broadcast at every game and produced in cooperation with the European Commission, pitch-side boards and activities with fans. The campaign will culminate with messages of anti-racism from the team captains direct from the pitch at both semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notes<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Unite Against Racism campaign at UEFA EURO 2008TM is carried out by the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) network in partnership with UEFA and with support of the international players union FIFPro.<\/p>\n<p>Full details in English, German, French and Italian are available on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.farenet.org\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">www.FAREnet.org<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For further details on the Fans\u2019 Embassies programme visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fanguide2008.net\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">www.fanguide2008.net<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Contacts<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>In English please contact<\/strong><br \/>\nDanny Lynch, Kick it Out (London), danny@kickitout.org Tel. 44 20 768 44 884 or Mobile 44 777 903 6696<\/p>\n<p><strong>In German and issues relating to Austria<br \/>\n<\/strong>Bettina Surtmann, FairPlay-vidc (Vienna), surtmann@vidc.org Tel. 43 1 713 35 94-86, Mobile<span>\u00a0 <\/span> 43 676 687 38 94<\/p>\n<p><strong>For issues relating to Switzerland<\/strong><br \/>\nJoni Kreutner, GRA-Foundation against racism and anti-Semitism (Zurich), <a href=\"mailto:j.kreutner@gra.ch\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">j.kreutner@gra.ch<\/span><\/a> Mobile 41 76 394 00 88<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News from FARE \u2013 Football Against Racism in Europe 9 June 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[],"class_list":["post-788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","pub-thumb":"","post-thumb":"","wcicon":"","wcsquare":"","wcsmall":"","wcstandard":"","wcbig":"","wcfixedheightsmall":"","wcfixedheightmedium":"","wcfixedheight":"","wccarouselsmall":"","wccarousel":"","wcslider":""},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"<p>News from FARE \u2013 Football Against Racism in Europe 9 June 2008 Euro stars speak at anti-racism reception In Basel representatives of UEFA and FARE \u2013 Football Against Racism in Europe came together with administrators, former footballers and non-governmental organisations to signal the beginning of a three-week anti-discrimination programme at UEFA EURO 2008\u2122. They pledged their overwhelming support to the Unite Against Racism campaign during a reception organised by FARE and supported by the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency \u2013 FRA at Basel\u2019s prestigious Hilton Hotel on Saturday, 7 June 2008. UEFA vice-president Senes Erzikunderlined:\u201cIt is probably not a very&hellip;<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"<a href=\"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/category\/news\/breaking-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Breaking news<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"admin","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/admin\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}