26.10.2012

Focus on community activities on final Football People weekend

The Football People Action Weeks hits its final weekend of activities, with a programme that will reach out to tens of thousands of participants at grassroots and community level across Europe.

Many of the activities will use football as a means of working with ethnic and other minorities and will feature fan groups, grassroots clubs and educational institutes. Some of the highlights include:

> Spanish fans group Kolectivo Sur performing a choreography in the Estadio Domecq dedicated to anti-discrimination.

> In support of the LGBTQ community FRIGO from Hungary will organise a flash mob in the centre of Budapest.

> In Poland KS Kontra will host a tournament which will bring together teams of ethnic minorities, a women teams, an LGBT community team, and a deaf team.

> Handifanclub, one of the largest fan clubs of Olympic Marseille, in cooperation with CAFE and MTP will display a banner to support social inclusion of disabled people at their match against Olympic Lyon on Saturday

> Austrian fan club Friends of Friedhoftribuene will take action against sexism with banners, stickers and an exhibition.

> Finnish group African Care Ry are hosting an event about ways to encourage immigrant girls to participate in football and other sports followed by a friendly match among immigrants.

> Georgian group DRONI will bring children from IDP (internally displaced people) settlements to the local stadium for a day of live music, football and art, in which youths will create an anti-racist banner that will be displayed in their settlement.

> In Shprese in Albania there will be tournaments run by Roma communities.

FARE board member Ike Chime of Liikkukaa ry said, “It is great to see so many grassroots activities taking place. We were delighted to host a conference in Helsinki last week that profiled the anti- discrimination movement in Finland.

“Our aim, like that of other groups, is to move forward to new agendas and challenges together. We are very much driven by the idea that we collectively are Football People and can achieve much through periods such as the FARE Action Weeks.”

Alongside the grassroots events will be activities with clubs and national leagues, these include the Bundesliga in Austria; the Premier League and Football Leagues in England; in France Ligue 1 and 2; in Greece the Superleague; in Northern Ireland, the Irish Premier league; the Swiss Football League; the Welsh Premier League and Welsh League; in Scotland the Scottish Premier League; and in Malta the Premier League.

For the first time Major League Soccer in the USA has given its endorsement to the period.


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