Overview

Enjoy the football, but also join hands to combat racism during Euro 2020

June 9, 2021 — In the run-up to the Euro football championship, besides enjoyment of the game, the Anne Frank House is calling attention to football-related racism. The Anne Frank House, in partnership with (inter)national football clubs, the Dutch football union and government agencies, has been running educational projects to counter racist hate speech and antisemitic chants in and around football stadiums.

‘There is an increasing awareness of football-related racism, and a wide range of groups are joining hands to combat it. That’s a positive development. So let’s keep up the good work and together show the red card to racism inside and outside football stadiums.’
Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House

For many years racist remarks and antisemitic chants in and around football stadiums were dismissed as ‘innocent’ or ‘isolated incidents’. But the match between FC Den Bosch and Excelsior on 17 November 2019, when Excelsior player Mendes Moirera walked off the field in tears following racist abuse by FC Den Bosch supporters, was a watershed moment. This proverbial ‘last straw’ resulted in the action plan ‘Football is for Everyone’, coordinated by the Dutch football association, the KNVB.

Chants project

Fair Play workshops for young people and the Chants Project for football supporters, organised by the Anne Frank House, form a part of the action plan. In the Chants Project football supporters follow an intensive day programme to raise their awareness of racist actions on the terraces. A key element of the programme is supporters’ intense loyalty to their club and their city, with an emphasis on the club’s and the city’s history. Supporters immerse themselves in this history, and see the enormous damage caused by the Second World War and the Holocaust. They visit ‘name memorials’ and go to local addresses where people went into hiding from the Nazis. They meet Jewish fellow supporters with moving personal stories: people who share their love for the same club, and who they can identify with as football fans.

Supporters shocked

Joram Verhoeven and Willem Wagenaar of the Anne Frank House: ‘Time and again we see how supporters are shocked when they learn that their Jewish fellow fans can no longer go to the match because of the antisemitic slogans they’re subjected to. Suddenly the Jew who – according to a notorious chant – should be ‘sent to the gas’ acquires a human face. That realisation has made many supporters resolve to no longer join in with these chants’.

Partnership

The Anne Frank House started the Chants Project together with Rotterdam club Feyenoord in 2016, and it has also been working together with FC Utrecht for several years. In May 2020 we heard the good news that thanks to a grant from the European Commission we could start work on a European level, with Feyenoord and Borussia Dortmund. In this partnership, titled ‘Changing the Chants’, we can combine our forces and our experience, learn from each other and provide football clubs and other organisations with valuable knowledge and insights.

Changing the Chants conference, 31 August & 1 September - Combat antisemitism in football

The Changing the Chants conference will take place 31 August and 1 September 2021 in Oświęcim/Poland.

The conference will be organised and held in cooperation with our partners from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim/Poland. We can offer a limited number of places for on-site participation. As a hybrid event, all content is also available online.

Fan activists, club officials and association representatives are invited to participate. We would also address experts in the fields of education, memorials and NGOs, representatives of Jewish institutions and communities, and anyone looking for new ways to expand their work against antisemitism in football.

Registration for the conference of the “Changing the Chants” project on methods and measures to combat antisemitism in football is still possible.