AntiRa. Anti-Racist Football Tournament
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>View discussions about this entry Country: Germany
Organization: Fanladen St. Pauli
Sport - Soccer
Year the initative began (yyyy) - 2004
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Project URL: http://www.antira-stpauli.org
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - Forming a network of antiracist football supporters throughout Europe and the rest of the world as a foundation for an annual anti-racist tournament.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? - Our anti-racist football tournament is a complementary event to the anti-racist football world cup in Italy held by Progetto Ultra since 10 years. We invite selected football supporters, who are doing antiracist work in their stadium, city and country. For once, fans from all over, regardless of nationality and ethnic origin, even if rooting for traditionally antagonizing clubs (Bayern Munich/Werder Bremen, Athletic Bilbao/Cadiz FC etc.) come together and celebrate their shared love for football. We have installed a network of different groups, who can join on match days and support each other during antiracist activities in their stadium or city. We also include a group from Israel to actively take a stand against anti-semitism, which is still virulent throughout Europe and in European soccer. Our tournament offers an opportunity for fans from different backgrounds to meet, network and develop joint activities to battle racism in football from the tiers.
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? - The biggest problems are the rivalries existing among different fan groups. Sometimes it is not easy to put these animosities aside and instead join forces against a real enemy - racism. We have also seen police oppression on the borders and similar problems with inter-european travel, e.g. the German embassy in Minsk not issuing visas to a group of fan from Belarus. Prevalent stereotypes about football fans as violent and threatening spread through the media pose a constant obstacle for our work.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? - Four antiracist tournaments already took place between 2004 and 2007. Our network is constantly growing throughout Europe, with groups visiting each other and planning united actions against racism or xenophobia. In this process, various fan blocks got to know each other better and learened to put their rivalries aside. We have built a solid base of European fan groups who imagine and advocate a world without racism, sexism, discrimination or antisemitism. Contrary to the bad media rap, our intiative proves that football fans proactively do find ways to fight racist views among them.
How do you plan to grow your innovation? - We have introduced a winter meeting with nearly all teams in order to extend the network and find more time for the actual planning of our activities apart from the torunament. We are constantly growing our network by actively approaching fan groups from all over Europe, making us now the second biggest network meeting of antiracist football supporters world-wide. Our efforts will concentrate on strengthening ties with other anti-racist initiatives in the local environment of each of the groups included in our network and approaching schools, youth clubs and youth sports initiatives. The tournament as an event will strive for more public attention and media coverage. Our networking efforst and further joint actions between fan groups without our direction will be backed up by stronger internet support. We will also look out for sponsors and partners who can help with documentation (video/broadcasting) and support programs around the tournement, which will then feed back into our getting more public interest.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. - Football fans from all over Europe put aside their differences to join forces and become active in fighting racism amongst them.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? - We have established bonds between fan groups throughout Europe and helped to reduce violence in the stadiums and in the streets. We have raised awareness about racism in soccer and created a space in which actual steps for the prevention of racist discrimination can be planned. We publicly took a stand agains all forms of discrimination and made a powerful statement to the public, demonstrating our determination not to tolerate racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia among European football fans. All supporters, the clubs, the football foundations, the whole society can benefit from this. We are working on world - not only of football - without racism and other kinds of discrimination.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? - St.Pauli´s clear stand against racism has spurred a continuing discussion about football, the fan scene and racism. Other clubs have been encouraged to come forward, admit to the problem and take action. More than any statement from officals, a strong and united grassroots fan movement can send an unmistakable signal to other fans that racism will not be tolerated in their midst. It is our game - it´s for us to change it.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? - Simply but alarmingly: Racism in football. Racist chants and insults directed against other clubs, teams, players and fans and the violence that all too often comes after. Too little public attention and a often a cavalier approach by officals who would rather hush up the problem so as not to "blemish" their sport.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? - Our initiative is financed by donations of the groups participating as well as from individuals and foundations. We sell food and drinks at small prices to finance all our costs.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization. - Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff. The budget for the tournament is 25.000 Euro each year. We don´t earn any money trough the tournament, but we never have any losses as well. Everybody participating in the organization works on a volunteer basis. We are a grass-roots movement with little interest in financial gain and like to work on a do-it-yourself approach. Still, further efforts geared at better sustainablity are in the making in order to allow the improved networking efforts we descibed above and help with getting more teams from abroad to Germany.
What is the potential demand for your innovation? - We are the second biggest network meeting of antiracist footballs supporters and participation in the tournament keeps growing. The demand is high within the supporters scene in Europe and abroad.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? - Most football supporters or groups can´t afford travelling to Germany. We are looking for ways to support teams from Belarus, Slovakia, Russia, Ucraine or Israel in that respect, whom we´d like to see as regular participants. There are huge problems in Eastern Europe especially with racism and anti-semitism and the few anti-racist groups avtive there are in desperate need of support and encouragement.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. - We took part in the Anti-racist World Cup in Italy from 1997 to 2004, which grew bigger and bigger over time with teams based in labour unions, leisure football associations and migrant organisations. Since it became more and more difficult to get to know the antiracist football supporters from each city and extend our network there, we came up with the idea to organize a tournament of our own that would specifically target groups of active football supporters fighting racism and discrimination in their stadiums and cities.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. - I have been a football supporter of FC ST. Pauli since 1985. Racism and discrimination has been a constant issue in all those years - for the club, but also in Germany as a whole. We try to fight it and to change the world of football.
Contact Information:
Heiko Schlesselmann
social worker Fanladen St. Pauli (a mixture of official social project of the city of Hamburg and supporters initiative) Discussions about this entry |
Kevin Carroll
Changemakers Featured Commentator
Sport for a Better World Competition
Fantastic initiative that is a very topical & prominent throughout Europe. I too am a avid follower of the “beautiful game”, Heiko and I truly believe that honoring teams and players for their skill and talent should be the focus – not a players ethnicity or a team’s locale. hae you had the opportunity to discuss your effort with the people from FARE (Football against Racism in Europe)? It seems like you would have a natural connection and alliance with them. Also, Mel Young from the Homeless World Cup may be able to assist you in thinking about how to organize your tourney to allow for more participation and to gain more support and involvement from governing/city officials – he’s had tremendous success in a short amount of time with his global socially focused soccer/football tourney.
Although you are tackling a huge issue within the big business of soccer/football your efforts are vital to increasing tolerance and understanding of others. What you are doing will make a BIG difference in the game!
Continued success...
Fantastic project.
I became aware of the vocal power of the St Pauli fans at the 3rd division game in Erfurt earlier this year when St Pauli all but guaranteed their promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga. The singing of You'll Never Walk Alone was sensational - but not as good as at Anfield!
Please see my video from that day (ps I have more if you are interested) at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxYJ2SSNVUM
There is much to be done in Germany and throughout Europe, as you point out. Are you working with FARE (football against racism in Europe)? Couldn't you contact UEFA? They would be able to help you get the message out and to gain that valuable added funding.
We organised football against racism events in Erfurt during the 2006 World Cup. So I'd be interested to know if there are respresentatives from clubs in the former East of Germany at your events? Rot Weiss Erfurt for example?
I know that a group of masters students at the University in Erfurt want to develop an anti-racism campaign with Rot Weiß Erfurt. Would you be willing ot be contacted by them? Maybe this could be a good partnership.
St. Pauli fans generally behave well, but there are also examples of extreme behaviour from them. Do you act as well to deal with violent / extremist fans within the St. Pauli fan group?
Cheers,
Andrew Aris
Lecturer University of Erfurt
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Spirit of Football - football's equivalent to the Olympic Torch
http://www.spiritoffootball.com
http://www.spiritoffootball.com
Moin moin,
it´s great to see the "buccaneers of the league" and the nightmare of Bayern Munich on changemakers, because I know that´s what you are - changemakers. As a longtime fan and guest at Millerntor stadium I have experienced first hand how St.Pauli fans made me feel at home, without a trace of the homophobic and racist chants one can come across at other football events. I´d love to hear more about what actions the groups in your network are taking besides the actual tournament. Do they work with other interest groups or actively change behavior in the stadiums?
*singing* We love Sankt Pauli, we do...
Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
University Challenge