The conference was opened by Dr. Zoltán Borbély, leader of the Press and Legal Department of HFA. He pointed out what the laws in place say about incitement and instigating hatred. He disapproves that there is no sanction if these acts do not manifest physically. Zoltán Borbély also emphasised that even though a lot of atrocities happen, these are not made public and do not reach authorities.
The first speaker was the vice president of HFA, Sándor Berzi, who presented the UEFA ten point action plan. The vice president mentioned that 20% of the world population is in a direct or indirect way connected to football. Berzi emphasised that the objective of UEFA is the elimination of racism in football and in favour of this goal the organisation makes efforts towards prevention. He mentioned the Football Against Racism campaign that works hard in order to expel racism from football and towards this goal they write reports, educational material and organise campaigns. Sándor Berzi emphasised the importance of education and awareness raising, that is especially important before the 2012 European Football Championship. He stressed that clubs have to support and internalise the UEFA ten point action plan and brought the example of matches abroad where the UEFA 10 points are included in the program brochures available before the match and give information to supporters and ask them to cooperate. In case of racist actions the organiser can condemn the atrocity in the loudspeaker, stop the match, make a pause or even cancel the game. The sanctions can vary from a fine to giving the score to the other team or even the disqualification of the club.
The next speaker was Gibril Deen, chair of Mahatma Gandhi Human Rights Organisation and also the person who had the idea of this conference. Mr. Deen stressed that he sees the best opportunity for social inclusion in sport. He gave a report on the activities of the organisation and said that the organisation has been fighting for years against the discrimination in sports fields. He talked about the work of SPIN – Sport inclusion network, its goals and the activities carried out within the program framework, the demonstrations in stadiums organised by the organisation, about the workshops held in schools, as well as about the Refugee Day organised in the summer in the Bicske refugee camp.
Péter Kovács, deputy security director of HFA pointed out, which was also mentioned by Zoltán Borbély, than a lot of atrocities stay hidden. According to his experience, the most common racist phenomena are chanting, the use of forbidden signs, forbidden political symbols and making monkey noises. He mentioned that the law forbids 5 symbols in Hungary, but in reality, extremist groups use many more and combine letters, numbers and colours in a way to avoid sanctions. Another frequent thing for supporters is to use different objects, puppets and cabala to provoke the opposing team’s supporters and the players. These usually do not carry racist content, but are aimed at teasing and mocking the opposing team. Péter Kovács talked about eight cases in the past year that the disciplinary committee had to deal with. It is important to know that the responsibility is on the organiser and that they have to be prepared for anything to happen and need to take precautions, to intervene and to sanction any racist actions. The director brought examples of how the club leaders react when such atrocities come up in discussions (“it is part of the game”, “if it will only be this much next year, I will be pleased”, “it is OK”, “if we intervene, the problem will only become bigger”).
Dr. György Szilágyi spoke at the conference as the chair of the fair play committee of HFA and stated that the anti-roma attitude has been a central issue within fair play for a long time. He talked about how the fair play score of a team is put together on the basis of six criteria, which are: the number of yellow and red cards, positive game, conduct towards the opposing team, behaviour of leaders, conduct towards the referee, and the behaviour of the audience. He commented that racist behaviour manifests in actions towards the opposing team, in the behaviour of leaders and in the behaviour of the audience. In the past year the attitudes towards the opposing team was most positive in the case of Pécs, the leaders showed the best example with their behaviour in Vasas and the audience’s behaviour was best in Gy?r.
In the second half of the conference and workshop Dr. Ibolya Tomory, spoke from the Comitas Pedagogical and Anthropological Organisation about her experiences from her East African fieldwork, from which she came to the conclusion that people from different cultures accept each other more in the sports field, because performance is much more important there than cultural background and origin.
She said that she has both good and bad experiences regarding the issue. She talked about a young man from Guinea, who she took to a small village, where the black man was instantly accepted by the Roma children playing football. This was a good example, however, he was also subject to atrocities. He played as a professional footballer in a team in Hungary, from which he moved to another team due to atrocities. Since the atrocities continued, he left the country and started playing for a foreign team. After listening to this story, the groups discussed that in Africa, the brand of the football does not matter, they even play if they do not have a ball, they love sport so much. People there follow traditional sport and if they have to, they make a ball out of banana shuck, just to have something to play with. Dr. Ibolya Tomory’s experience was that GOMA+SPORT went well together wherever she went. GOMA in Swahili means sharing one’s opinion with music and dance. GOMA has the role of bringing people in the right mood and closing up before and after sport. In these areas the coach acts as teacher, friend and life coaching counsellor. The goal of the players is succeeding in life, not victory!
Géza Róka, the manager of DVSC is of the opinion that racism experienced in sports fields have deep roots in society and that the atrocities in stadiums are due to accumulated tensions. In stopping excluding behaviour the clubs and the media have an important role, furthermore, it is important to keep in touch with supporter groups, not to mention the fact that good results calm down negative emotions, thus reducing racist atrocities.
Levente Nyitrai , Foreign Policy, JHA and Human Rights Attaché of the British Embassy talked about standing up against racism in England. He said that the first racist incident was recorded in the 1930s, but this negative tendency grew stronger in the 80s. In the past few decades several campaigns were organised in order to cut back on racism, the political elite is taking the problem more and more seriously, and recently, strict legal proceedings have taken place in order to eliminate excluding behaviour.
István Mezei, leader of the Hungarian Roma Team considered it important to emphasise that for the success story (114 victories out of 116 matches) of this twenty year-old minority team they needed the support of HFA. He also pointed out that sport can provide opportunities for disadvantaged youth, but in their case attention and patience is especially important.
Ádám Jusztin, the chair of Maccabi VAC summarised his club’s most important tasks and talked about how the members of the Jewish community were really successful in the previous century in Hungarian colours, however, it is still a taboo who among our leading sport people are from Jewish origin, since not even the sportsmen and women themselves go public about their ethnicity. According to Jusztin, until the death of Alfréd Hajós, we knew who was Jewish, but we don’t know since then. Jusztin brought along with him Alfréd Hajós’s ruler to show at the conference. He also said that MTK and the Jewish Community cooperate well. He talked about the Jewish Olympics every 4 years (always the year after the regular Olympic Games) and the great success it has. He added that he hopes that the time will come that such a great event can also take place in our country, where 2000-2500 Jewish people can compete in sport and can parade in the streets.
Sándor Berzi, concluding the lecture series said that the conference that attracted great media interest can be considered successful from several aspects, however, he had expected greater interest from NB I and NB II clubs.