Monitoring racist and discriminatory incidents has been a key element of the Fare programme since the Euro 2004 in Portugal. In order to tackle issues such as racism and discrimination in football it is an important tool to understand the scope of the problem.
Fare believes that tackling racism and discrimination in football requires a multi-facetted approach combining educational activities, disciplinary measures and encouraging self-regulation amongst fans.
Monitoring discriminatory incidents plays an important role in tackling this problem by providing a way to collect evidence and conduct a thorough analysis of the scope. The data collected may be used to focus stakeholders’ attention on particular issues and incidents and stimulate proactive debates and measures among NGOs, clubs, FAs and fans themselves.
The Fare network want to make sure that football fans, governing bodies and other stakeholders are doing everything they can to prevent racist and discriminatory incidents from occurring and react appropriately when discriminatory incidents occur. Match day observers are a key element within this system with the necessary knowledge and experience to make reports when incidents occur during a game.
For the UEFA EURO 2016 in France, Fare will dispatch two observers to attend each of the 51 games. Observers will be selected on basis of their expertise of the football culture in the countries, which are competing in the particular fixture and the observers’ understanding of issues of racism and discrimination. The Fare observers will receive training prior to the tournament during which they will learn about the protocol that has been put in place for the reporting of discriminatory incidents and other relevant topics.
more information on the role of observers, criteria for the application and selection, the monitoring system and the application form is available on the website of the 
Fare network.