Nordic seminar no 3 in Gothenburg May 4th 2006

Scandic Crown Hotel : 10.00-18.30

Magnus Erlingmark – Swedish Player Union
John Ohlsson – Undom mot rasism, Sweden
Gabby Castillo – Undom mot rasism, Sweden
Markus Juhola – Finish Player Union
Mourad Bentaleb – FIMU (Finnish Multicultural Sports Fed)
Mads Øland – Danish Player Union
Simon Christensen – MixEurope, Denmark
Henrik  Stabell – Norwegian People’s Aid

Outcome of this seminar: We should make sure we leave here with a joint statement and ideas for a new joint product.

Sweden: After World Cup – event in all arenas top 2 divisions men and ladies’ top division: 42 clubs. Then again in October during FARE Action week. Short speech before match and handing out leaflets to spectators. Interest after the Barcelona conference to do something also in the FA and the Club Organisation. FA seems to back out. Goalkeeper from Ghana playing in Sweden wants to work for campaign. Also working with this in schools which UMR have good experience with. Football schools during summer. In talks with a marketing company on how to make a big impact when having events in the arenas.

Denmark: Great player Wieghorst attended meeting with Ministry of Integration. Ministry now funding campaign with DKK 3,5 mill for three years. Press conference in Parken in Copenhagen on April 28th to launch the campaign. First event will be on May 7th in the SAS League. Huge long banner with Giv Racismen det Røde Kort, fliers, t-shirts, etc. Off the pitch Production of CD, video and posters. School program with involvement of players and teachers. Supporter groups are partners of the campaign and will hand out flyers and information to spectators. Video from the press conference at www.stopracismen.dk

Finland: New DVD for educational purpose. Combining player statements and interviews with kids, coaches and other people that know about racism in society and in sports. Events with top teams showing the red card before match. Campaign poster and statements from Nordic player union leaders is included in magazine of the Finnish Player Union. LO (Trade Union) of Finland interested in cooperation on campaign. Especially after seeing the involvement of LO of Norway and statement in Norwegian magazine. Finnish secretariat for the Nordic council is collaborating with the campaign, spreading material like posters to schools. Launch of DVD created interest for campaign in Finland. Sports university in Jyveskylaa have shown DVD and talked on this issue. All Different - All Equal have invited campaign to present the work at seminar in Turku. Barcelona conference helped to get the Finnish FA to want to take part in anti-racism work. The Finnish FA is now welcoming the campaign and 25th of May is announced as Red Card Day with events in the women’s league. Tampere against Wasa in men’s top league will also have event on August 20th. FIMU web site will now also have English news. DVD will be subtitled to Swedish, Russian and English. 

Norway: Finished new DVD in January. 32 school competitions with local newspapers around the country. School classes making football banners against racism on cardboard 100x70cm. All 32 winners get banner material 210x150cm to transfer the cardboard to cloth. National final end of May. Winning class gets a cheque of NOK 10.000,-. 2 kids and a teacher from the winner class of the national final will also be invited to the Player of the Year awards in November, hosted by NISO (Norw. Player Union). Planning two or three Premier League rounds with arena events this season (players showing racism the red card before match).

Nordic Cooperation:
EU – needs to include several countries in Europe (outside Nordic countries). Possible if including Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Holland, etc where there are Player Unions that could be partners. Also focus needs to be quite specific as the EU already have sponsored the FARE program on racism in football. Needs to be different than the FARE program.

Trade Unions – next seminar (in Norway or Denmark) we will invite the Nordic Trade Unions and make a conference day with them and preferably have some players visit the conference and make a statement. This could take place in October – November. Norwegian and Danish Trade Unions already involved in the national campaigns. 

Joint Product: We will make a joint brochure with presentation and photos of activities in the four campaigns. This will be produced early autumn and be ready for the conference with the Nordic Trade Unions.

New FIFA disciplinary code amendments as of March 2006: Discussion and consensus on that the amendments are going too far. There is no differentiation between clubs that actually take action against racist incidents and clubs that do nothing even when there is massive monkey chanting from the stands again and again. It is important that clubs and players see they have a role to play and some control in fighting the problem. One single spectator (possibly even disguised in opposing team’s colours) could potentially now get another team relegated or lose a title by shouting something racist during a match. Playing matches for empty arenas on repeated racist activities from spectators is a welcome and good penalty, but deduction of points should be avoided. If a club does nothing and this problem prevails in following matches where spectators are let back into the arena., relegation or suspension of a team from a tournament could be considered.