EU Agency for Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) Media Release

The European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) will join UEFA,FARE, FIFPro, football players and others in signing a “pledge”supporting respect for diversity at a launch event for EURO 2008(tm) on7 June in Basel, Switzerland. This “pledge” is timely as a spate ofevents in Europe over the past year has shown that the spectrum ofracism and other forms of intolerance still haunt the sport.

“We must continue to tackle racism in football head on as recent eventsat football grounds have highlighted in Europe. A lot has been done byUEFA and some national associations but we all agree that it’s a teameffort and more action is required now. There needs to be greaterrepresentation of the game’s multi-ethnic groups in decision-makingroles. There needs to be consistency in the way laws and rules areapplied regarding racial abuse and inequality. And we need to be able tosee and measure progress”, said Morten Kjaerum, Director of theFundamental Rights Agency.

The pledge kicks off a series of planned activities on football andracism for FRA in 2008. The agency has published a special edition ofits Equal Voices magazine on “football versus intolerance”, which bringstogether perspectives from professional players, UEFA president Platiniand European politicians, on how football can win the match againstracism and other forms of intolerance. FRA is preparing a report onracism and examples of anti-racism good practice within football andwill organise an event with the football family to develop furtheraction to address these issues across Europe.

FRA calls on the football authorities and their clubs to undertake thefollowing action as part of coordinated and sustainable work to promoteracial equality and combat all forms of intolerance:

National level
1. Establish a mechanism to record, report and monitor intolerance,in close cooperation with Equality bodies and the policing authorities;
2. Establish a public database of good practice to promote racialequality and combat all forms of discrimination in football;
3. Designate or establish an equality coordinator within nationalassociations of football who can devise a national action plan forfootball.
European level
4. Establish standards and rules on racial abuse and inequality withenforcement powers with European wide applicability and consistency;
5. Establish a train-the-trainers programme for managers, refereesand football officials on equality and discrimination issues.

Further information:
FRA Media Team+43 (1) 580 30 633
media@fra.europa.eu