After watching yesterdays Panorama on racism in Poland and Ukraine, I was left fuming, especially as i am brown and seeing people get hit and abused because of their colour and religion is appaling. Sol Campbell was 100% right in what he said, but the Ukrainians say otherwise. Racism is bad not just in Football.http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18253420
lloydy - we need to stand up to these people. Dont get a lot of this at Watford though although I had a quiet word with a couple of "fans" at the spurs game a year or two ago. To be fair they were embarrassed and shut up. Some teams are better than others I have to say.
English fans should and often do condemn racism wherever it occurs. But when you're talking about national figures or bodies (be they players, politicians, football associations or governments), you've got to think very carefully about who can most effectively apply the pressure, and what will happen if the wrong sort of pressure is put on. Ukraine is politically divided. Any pressure put on them by the likes of England and Germany needs to be accompanied by a similar message from ex-Soviet nations to have every chance of being heard. I'm reluctant to draw this parallel, but the reason we have relative peace in Northern Ireland is that there was a strong, united will from Britain and the Republic to work together to achieve peace, regardless of their differences. One other comment I have to make is that I've always seen the build-up and follow-up to Euro 96 as a general turning point for improving many of the problems in English football. Some of that might have been coincidence, given that we had the Bradford fire and Hillsborough a few years before, and prominent black England players in the early 90s such as John Barnes and Paul Ince. But let's not dismiss out of hand the possibility that Euro 2012 will have some sort of long term effect on the host countries.
It is hard to understand why this is breaking out in Poland. The country had one of the largest populations of Jews in Europe and during WWII 90% or 3million of them were killed. There was little support for the Nazis in the country, yet now we see people at football games using the salute. I can only assume that those engaged in such behaviour are too young to remember, and too thick to know about the history of their land.
Because soccer hooliganism is seen as the english disease abroad , we are perceived as the masters at it , or the teacher if you like . Every pupil wants to outdo the teacher, that is why the Ukranians want to attack England fans and not the French or Spanish. Add to this mix self trained military style tactics and organisation and you are lead to believe that there will almost definitely be trouble! The biggest and perhaps costly cock up is by the authorities that granted this country the event in the first place, any blood spilt any injuries caused the blame has to be laid at Uefa`s doorstep.
my far-fetched theory about this is that these idiots (we've gotta make it clear that whilst more polish & ukrainians think in this way than english people they still are the minority) either have airbrushed their history in their minds so as to believe in this carp OR they blame the jews for poland having the most concentration camps as they had the most amount of jews (in an extremely disgustingly sort of efficient way you place the most camps in the place where most of them are). Either way they use this to blame the Jews for the black mark that they have on their history methinks. A better-sounding (and still extremely wrong) theory is that the communists also screwed them over economically etc. and the jews have historically been linked with them
the programme was sickening. It didn't show us anything we didn't know i suppose, but the scale of it, and the mindless violence, as well as organised nazi salutes was still shocking. I just hope that although it obviously happens in both countries, it's a tribal club thing, and at the Euros we'll see very little of it...sadly though, i think there will be trouble at England games...before, during and after...
I didn't see the programme but I am sure it was horrific. There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. Everyone should look out for eachother, sometimes the westernised world has my mind condused. PEACE, LOVE AND UNITY TO THOSE WHO DESERVE IT !!
What was just as scary as the nazi saluting thugism was the reaction of the authorities. Total denial that there was any problem. Ukraine's foreign minister reacting to the programme reported as saying the 'allegations' were a 'dreamed up and mythical problem'. We're far from perfect here, but at least we recognised there was a problem a long while back, and have taken steps to address it.
Did anyone do any kind of research before awarding the tournament to Ukraine in the first place? I see today Balotelli says he will walk off the field if he experiences racial abuse. I think he'd need the support of the rest of his team to make such an act win fans over. Sadly commercial interests rule these days and blind eyes are turned when they shouldn't be...
you've missed half of what he said there. he also said if anyone throws at him a banana in the street he'll be in jail because he'll have killed the guy
you're right about the good/bad people thing. Whatever race, religion, colour, belief opinion view, or even species you are, youcan be seperated innto good or bad people (or thing). I would be too scared to go to the Euros now, even if i had tickets.
What a shame that we're in the 21st century and people are scared to go to a football tournament because of the colour of their skin. I haven't seen the programme, but I believe that the atmosphere at local Ukraine/Polish clubs will be different from the national team. Did the programme look at holiganism at Ukraine and Poland matches, as opposed to just looking at clubs? A point Telegraph journalist Henry Winter made was that these thugs would be priced out of the Euros, but yes we could have trouble outside. The same level as Euro 2000? Surely, surely not, we can only hope.
We discussed this on our board the other night. http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/148262-Stadiums-of-hate And this, heartbreaking for anyone who heard it. http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/148349-OT-Interesting-Programme-on-5-Live-Tonight Unfortunately, I don't think it will ever be totally eradicated.
