bbc's panorama dives into the racist world of polish and ukranian footbal

[Sasha]

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[Permanent Revolutionary]

They used to call football the most beautiful game in the world. But after seeing this I don't know.

This really is shameful, UEFA should never have given these two countries the Euro championship. Italy was also in the running for christ's sake.

PS: Are there no left-wing football teams in Poland, only fascists?

[ed miliband]

They used to call football the most beautiful game in the world. But after seeing this I don't know.

This really is shameful, UEFA should never have given these two countries the Euro championship. Italy was also in the running for christ's sake.

PS: Are there no left-wing football teams in Poland, only fascists?

in many places football is becoming increasingly less racist, so it isn't like this represents some fall from grace

[Permanent Revolutionary]

No, this may be the case in Britain, because you have had this problem longer than the other countries in Europe.
Racism is on the increase in the Eastern European countries, and we have also seen this trend in Denmark for example.

[bricolage]

i haven't watched this yet and whilst there are obviously strong racist elements amongst a number of polish and ukranian fans, based on the response from people I know, on facebook, etc I get the feeling this is largely a sense of british smugness vs eastern neanderthals. i'm not sure you can really tar a whole country (or two countries) based on footage of certain firms/ultra groups/individuals and thereby assume all however many thousand people in the stadium are racists. obviously one nazi salute is one too many but I've got arsenal fans moaning about anti-semitism when they have fans making auschwitz chants to tottenham, and it's not like the england team isn't gonna be led by everyone favourite racist john terry.

This really is shameful, UEFA should never have given these two countries the Euro championship. Italy was also in the running for christ's sake.
italy that has its equally fair share of organised right wing groups that have been free to display 'a negro cannot be Italian' banners?

PS: Are there no left-wing football teams in Poland, only fascists?
yeah, pretty sure most ultras there are right wing.

[Niall]

so, before the WC BBC and sky show programmes about the crime in SA and how its gonna effect everyone going. What happens? Heehaw. Now weve had both BBC and Sky showing programmes on the problem of racism in Poland and Ukraine. Anyone would think that they are pissed off England was overlooked for these tournaments. For what its worth, Im sure there are antifa and leftwing groups over there. Also, its a disgrace that BBC have now tarred all ultras with the racist/fascist scum brush

[Permanent Revolutionary]

No one is saying all football supporters in Poland/Ukraine are racists and fascists. It's only neing pointed out that racism is a massive problem in these countries.

PS: And England wasn't snubbed for the 2010 WC, but the 2018 WC, so I can't see what the BBC and Sky should have against South Africa.

[Niall]

No one is saying all football supporters in Poland/Ukraine are racists and fascists. It's only neing pointed out that racism is a massive problem in these countries.

PS: And England wasn't snubbed for the 2010 WC, but the 2018 WC, so I can't see what the BBC and Sky should have against South Africa.


SORRY, should have been clearer, I meant recent tournaments in general. Yes, it is a massive problem, but anyone watching these programmes would think that ALL supporters there are racist thugs.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing the Olympics programme panorama and SSN are going to show. Oh, wait......

[Permanent Revolutionary]

anyone watching these programmes would think that ALL supporters there are racist thugs.

I'm sorry but that is rubbish. People should be smart enough to see that this isn't the case.

[Niall]

I'm sorry but that is rubbish. People should be smart enough to see that this isn't the case.

people who have no idea about the ultras scene in general, and esp overthere, will believe that they are all fascist thugs, which I am sure is the point of the programme in the first place

[Igor]

Football is the sport of all sports and fuck these shitfaces for bringing their hateful garbage upon it.

[Bronco]

i haven't watched this yet and whilst there are obviously strong racist elements amongst a number of polish and ukranian fans, based on the response from people I know, on facebook, etc I get the feeling this is largely a sense of british smugness vs eastern neanderthals. i'm not sure you can really tar a whole country (or two countries) based on footage of certain firms/ultra groups/individuals and thereby assume all however many thousand people in the stadium are racists. obviously one nazi salute is one too many but I've got arsenal fans moaning about anti-semitism when they have fans making auschwitz chants to tottenham, and it's not like the england team isn't gonna be led by everyone favourite racist john terry.


The program does talk about John Terry's racism accusation to be fair, and Sol Campbell's on there mentioning how he's received racist abuse. They don't try and make this out to be nationwide thing either. I'd say racism is objectively worse in Eastern European football than it is in the English game, and it's difficult to see footage of; loud chants of "Jewish whore"; black players who played in Poland talking about how monkey noises were routinely made at them; about 2000 Ukrainian fans (not one) doing a Nazi salute; a group of Asian students assaulted in the stands; and try and dismiss it as "British smugness".

I'm not saying all Ukranians/Poles are like that, I'm not saying all their fans are like that or that all the ultras are like that; but a lot of it quite damning

[El Louton]

Any resistance?

[brigadista]

worth it just to see black footballers voicing the effects on them and the interviews with the indian students - if teams have supporters doing this during the tournament the matches should stop or the teams should be disqualified - and for the record John Terry should not be playing

[Manic Impressive]

I have a horrible feeling we're going to see some repeats of that England Spain game. (The one where the Spanish fans made monkey noises every time a black player touched the ball)

[bricolage]

so i've watched it and does have some shocking elements, i'm still wary of how much of it is bbc sensationalism, for example they mention a game with arsenal kiev but ignore that their fans, and especially their hooligans, are antifa. also someone on a football forum has written this The first game they show between Lodz (I think) v Widzew it shows the subtitles of the Lodz fans singing it says "who's not jumping is a Jew" but infact they are actually singing "who's not jumping is from Widzew" HOWEVER I'm really not sure how much I believe them and wouldn't be surprised if they are lying. anyway for sure there is a strong racist and far right presence and it's unclear what's going to happen but I still maintain this documentary had severe undertones of attempting to tar all poles/ukranians/east europeans as racist and especially trying to portray the entire ultra scene as racist, showing flare, tifos and fights against cops alongside nazi salutes and conflating it all as one.

[bricolage]

another comment I've seen on a different forum,

Football attendances in the Ukraine are very much like Scotland where 2 clubs totally dominate, in the Ukraine it is Dynamo Kiev and Shaktor Donetsk who are the "super" clubs with easily the most fans
It is somewhat surprising then that the BBC panorama programme did not show these fans bearing in mind that England will play group matches in Kiev and Donetsk
it seems that kiev and donetsk would have produced less shocking material so they decided to focus on smaller clubs.

[Niall]

so i've watched it and does have some shocking elements, i'm still wary of how much of it is bbc sensationalism, for example they mention a game with arsenal kiev but ignore that their fans, and especially their hooligans, are antifa. also someone on a football forum has written this The first game they show between Lodz (I think) v Widzew it shows the subtitles of the Lodz fans singing it says "who's not jumping is a Jew" but infact they are actually singing "who's not jumping is from Widzew" HOWEVER I'm really not sure how much I believe them and wouldn't be surprised if they are lying. anyway for sure there is a strong racist and far right presence and it's unclear what's going to happen but I still maintain this documentary had severe undertones of attempting to tar all poles/ukranians/east europeans as racist and especially trying to portray the entire ultra scene as racist, showing flare, tifos and fights against cops alongside nazi salutes and conflating it all as one.

glad Im not the only one saw it that way

[Bandito]

No worries, Mario is going to kill them all. Literally.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51881000/jpg/_51881431_balotelli.jpg

Mario Balotelli has threatened to walk off the pitch if he is racially abused at Euro 2012 and said he would 'kill' anyone who dares to throw a banana at him.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/euro2012/article-2151865/Mario-Balotelli-warns-racists-Throw-bananas-Ill-kill--EURO-2012.html

[brigadista]

No worries, Mario is going to kill them all. Literally.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51881000/jpg/_51881431_balotelli.jpg

Mario Balotelli has threatened to walk off the pitch if he is racially abused at Euro 2012 and said he would 'kill' anyone who dares to throw a banana at him.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/euro2012/article-2151865/Mario-Balotelli-warns-racists-Throw-bananas-Ill-kill--EURO-2012.html





you find this amusing???

Mario Balotelli has been subjected to the worst type of press stereotyping in the UK - and if he was white he would have been given entirely different press coverage- ESPECIALLY by the DM

[bricolage]

yep.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/06/panorama-attacked-sensationalist-euro-2012-racism-claims

[pastradamus]

you find this amusing???

Mario Balotelli has been subjected to the worst type of press stereotyping in the UK - and if he was white he would have been given entirely different press coverage- ESPECIALLY by the DM

Ah come on now in fairess. The guy is a complete idiot. If he had a better personality he would be twice the player. The guy lit up a cigarette at half time in the dressing room and wondered why Mancini was angry.

[pastradamus]

Back to the issue at hand, Polish football is drowning in racism. Im not sure about the Ukraine but Polish teams like Legia Warsaw are renowned for Nazi supporters and right-wing hooliganism. Panorama was a bit on the exagerative side but it does stand to reason that this has been very well documented in the past.

[pastradamus]

Turns out that Panorama was right. Dutch players were the victims of racist abuse at a training session from Polish fans. Good decision by UEFA to give Poland,one of the most racist footballing nations the Euro's. Also good decision by Platini not to actually address the issue as always.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/07/euro-2012-holland-racist-abuse

[bricolage]

Yet despite Ornstein’s attack on this wilfully misleading programme, he is understandably unwilling to answer why Panorama pursued the narrative it did. ‘It would be very speculative of me to try to get behind the motivation of the BBC and the way in which it presented the programme’, he says. Ornstein may shy away from speculation, but we shouldn’t. What seemed to drive ‘Stadiums of Hate’ was not an intention to deceive, exactly. It was something else: an overriding willingness to believe the worst about people from ‘over there’.
http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/12552/

In other news two of my housemates just got back from Ukraine and said the only racism they saw was in the stadium in Kiev during the England-Sweden match where someone had drawn a massive swastika in the toilets and written London Skins.

[Bandito]

you find this amusing???

Mario Balotelli has been subjected to the worst type of press stereotyping in the UK - and if he was white he would have been given entirely different press coverage- ESPECIALLY by the DM

No, I posted this because I think Mario is a fucking hero.

Calmate.

[I.Drink.Your.Milkshake]

You can walk around almost any British town and find right wing grafitti. For quite a long time there was a Swaztika spray painted onto the side of a building in Cannock town centre. In my head it feels like it was there for years but maybe that's just my mind playing tricks, like when your 9 years old and you feel like you've seen loads of Christmasses, but then when you get older you think back and think "fucking hell - I must have been basing that feeling on the 2 or 3 I could actually remember".

The point is that you could probably selectively edit almost any country in the world to look like the Fourth Reich.

[Red Future]

You can walk around almost any British town and find right wing grafitti. For quite a long time there was a Swaztika spray painted onto the side of a building in Cannock town centre. In my head it feels like it was there for years but maybe that's just my mind playing tricks, like when your 9 years old and you feel like you've seen loads of Christmasses, but then when you get older you think back and think "fucking hell - I must have been basing that feeling on the 2 or 3 I could actually remember".

The point is that you could probably selectively edit almost any country in the world to look like the Fourth Reich.

The nationalist stuff is a lot more common as a general rule I think.On the subject of racism you can still buy derogatory souvenirs like "Gollywogs".In many shops in rural/rural fringe conservative areas.