News in 2006

05th November 2006

Polish Professional Footballers against Racism and Aggression

Aggression and racism on football pitches remains one of football’s main problems. Every football fan loves to see great performances, but even the best game of football can be spoilt by irresponsible behaviour from one of its participants – a footballer, or someone in the stands.

The footballers associated with The All-Poland Footballers’ Trade Union OZZP initiated protests against this type of negative behaviour on the football pitch.

During the 12th lmatch day of the Orange Ekstraklasse and the 15th round of the 2nd League, all players and coaches went on to the pitches wearing T-shirts displaying the logo "Show Aggression and Racism the Red Card", and threw them into the crowd of football fans. This action was fully supported by the Ekstraklasa S.A. board and the Polish Players’ Union OZZP.

This action was the latest event of the Polish "Show Aggression and Racism the Red Card" campaign, following the Football Fan Tournament and an action during the Lodz derby, which was organised during the spring of 2006.

OZZP noticed that apart from racism, we must also tackle the huge problem of aggression; therefore, our action has been promoted under the logo: "Show Aggression and Racism the Red Card".

OZZP-president Marek Pieta: ‘We do not want Polish pitches to be associated with aggression, racism and xenophobia. We all want to present another image of football. For quite some time now, more and more people, even whole families, have been visiting our pitches wanting to watch a match in a good sporting atmosphere. We do not want the effort made by people wanting to improve the image of Polish football to be damaged by a small minority, who pretend to be football fans, but whose chauvinistic behaviour spoils the hard work of people who care about the quality of Polish football.’

OZZP was pleased with the fans’ response to this appeal, requesting promotional materials for this action, in order to raise awareness among other fans concerning aggression and racism problems.

Pieta: ‘Our action was warmly welcomed by the media, which broadcast information about it a few days before the games started. The T-shirts bearing the action logo were shown on television, at a weekly press conference, as well as on 26th October 2006 at a meeting organised by PZPN on the "Safe Pitch" action.

‘Answering our appeal, television channels broadcasting the league games also drew special attention to this event and expressed their support for the action.’

One of the local newspapers "Dziennik Wschodni" organized a competition for the best slogan against racism and aggression and OZZP-action T-shirts were awarded as prizes.

Source: FIFPro