pro supporters

Prevention Through Empowerment

Background

There is a growing awareness that long-term social preventive measures are necessary in order to tackle the problem of football related violence and also to address the underlying causes of sport violence. In the Action point 21 of the White Paper the European Commission announced to promote “socio educational actions such as fan coaching (long term work with supporters to develop a positive and non-violent attitude).” The EU policy document also states that “supporters’ embassies should be encouraged and developed in every major international event”. FairPlay-VIDC, the lead organisation of the project was the coordination office of the FARE network until 2010 and acts as one of the regional coordinating organisations of the FARE network. Futhermore, FairPlay-VIDC was involved in the organisation of the Fans’ Embassies at the UEFA EURO 2004, the FIFA World Cup 2006, the UEFA EURO 2008 and supported the Fans’ Embassies at UEFA EURO 2012. Thus gained tremendous experience and knowledge on the application of these effective social preventive measures.

Main Goal + Objectives

The main goal of the project Pro Supporters is to promote non-violent and inclusive fan and football cultures.

The objectives are:

• To promote fans’ empowerment to self-management and selfregulation measures by fans for fans and to promote dialogue with football supporters as integral means of prevention with football governing bodies
• To further develop social preventive fan work approaches across Europe in order to help establishing non-violent, inclusive, nondiscriminatory football cultures
• To build an international knowledge-based partnership and exchange good practice between football supporters (including Ultrà groups and other organised fans), football governing bodies (professional clubs, national leagues, national football associations (FAs), UEFA), players and ethnic minority / migrant groups
• To develop innovative and creative methods to raise awareness on problems associated with racism and related intolerances in football

This project supported and co-funded by the European Commission (DG Education and Culture) in the field of prevention of and fight against violence and intolerance in sport and lasts from 1 March 2012 to 30 June 2013.