Czech futsal club "takes a knee" against the xenophobic remarks of the SPD chair and the President

The Dynamo Černý Most futsal club has received hundreds of “likes” and shares on Facebook after player and trainer Marek Bělor, a Romani community member, posted a photo expressing disagreement with the hateful remarks of SPD chair Tomio Okamura and Czech President Miloš Zeman. The club has taken a clear stance against the dissemination of negative attitudes toward minorities through which Okamura, his party and the Czech President are inciting racism and xenophobia in society.

The club published the photograph of its players of different nationalities kneeling with their arms around each other’s shoulders to its Facebook profile with this message:  “Greetings to all our fans! By posting this photo we are expressing our protest against racism, it bothers us that Tomio Okamura’s SPD party is able to be in Parliament. We are bothered by the incitement to racism and by the bans on a faith, we disagree with the behavior of the President of the Czech Republic. Our team is multicultural and exactly for that reason we are proud of them! The only weapon against all of this is peace, irrespective of race and religion. We ask you to share our protest and spread it around! Thank you! Stop racism! Stop Ortel.”

The post was made at the beginning of December by Bělor, whose multicultural team is comprised of 15 members of various nationalities. “On the team we have members playing whose origins are from different countries. For example we have guys from Afghanistan, Bulgaria, China, Mexico, Slovakia, Ukraine, Vietnam – but also Czechs, Roma and Slovaks aged 15 and older are playing together,” he told news server Romea.cz.

“Our team is running for a second year already. I saw these guys come to the pitch to practice. I saw they were talented and just didn’t have anywhere to play,” he described the beginnings of the club.

“I disagree with what Okamura is advocating here. Through our multicultural team we want to demonstrate that even though we are not remunerated for our work on the pitch, the guys know how to show that irrespective of their ethnicity, their nationality, or their skin color, they know how to unite and work towards the same goal, to play on the same team,” Bělor told Romea.cz.