Our partners, Fare, have issued a statement in relation to the recent campaign of vilification of the Never Again association.

The Fare network is an umbrella organisation that brings together individuals, informal groups and organisations driven to combat inequality in football and use the sport as a means for social change. CAFE stands alongside Fare in support of this statement.

The statement reads; "The Fare network is expressing its concern about what appears to be a campaign of vilification by a senior representative of the Polish FA of Fare member group Never Again and of the work of our network.

"Comments by the President of the PZPN, Zbigniew Boniek, posted on his Twitter account in reaction to a sanction imposed by UEFA on KKS Lech Poznań go beyond the acceptable terms of legitimate debate about issues of discrimination and are not in keeping with the position of the President of the Polish FA.

"Mr. Boniek has also posted a picture of a prominent member of Never Again and retweeted a link to a far-right website. These actions have resulted in a campaign of hate and serious threats against one of our long-standing Polish partners.

"It is clear that Never Again have been picked out because of their work in the area of tackling racism and far-right activity in football and because they have had involvement in the Fare match observer system in European football.

"The observer system aims to identify and report incidents of discrimination. The system is accredited by UEFA and Fare observers are highly trained and experienced individuals who are independent. Our member groups are unconnected with the action taken by UEFA or other football authorities and recriminations of this kind by senior people in football should stop immediately". 

More information about the objectives of the Fare network in Polish can be found here.

More information about the Fare observer scheme, can be found here.

http://www.farenet.org/news/statement-on-the-campaign-of-vilification-of-the-never-again-association

Published 03/08/2015