EURO 2021

On 18 August 2011, at the invitation of the Polish Parliament’s National and Ethnic Minorities Committee, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association presented its activities against racism and xenophobia in football stadiums in the lead up to EURO 2012. – ‘Polish football is often quite multi-cultural, which is emblematic of broader demographic changes across Europe, but the situation in many stadiums still gives reasons for concern’ – said Dr Rafal Pankowski, the coordinator of the East Europe Monitoring Centre set up by ‘NEVER AGAIN’ in cooperation with the FARE Network and UEFA. […]

Members of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association held meetings with authorities and civil society leaders in several cities across the Russian Federation between 26-30 September 2011. They discussed future cooperation and exchange of experiences in the struggle against racism and xenophobia in the lead up to the 2018 World Cup to be held in Russia. Among others, they visited Kazan – the home of FC Rubin and a 2018 World Cup host city – where they were received by the leaders of the Parliamentary Civic Chamber of the Republic of Tatarstan […]

Members of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association have actively promoted the ‎message of respect for diversity through a series of international meetings in the run-up to this year’s International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism. On 26-30 October, Anna Tatar repeatedly presented the current activities of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ in the field of hate crime monitoring at the ‘United for Equality’ forum held in Paris. The meeting was convened by Les Maisons des Potes with the participation of anti-racism NGOs from 16 European countries and it featured presentations by several candidates for the […]

Throughout April and May 2016, members of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association have provided anti-racism trainings to prison workers and volunteers working with inmates during special workshops in Poland, Greece, and Hungary. The trainings were organized in frames of the innovative educational project E.U.R.O.P.E. (European Union Rapprochement for Offenders and Pupils Education). Supported by the European Commission, the project aims to promote European and civic values among inmates, ex-convicts and socially marginalized youth in cooperation with officials and volunteers. The international project is managed by Collegium Civitas in Warsaw with the participation […]

An anti-discrimination football exhibition prepared by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has been opened in the main hall of the Polish Parliament on 19 February 2014. The opening ceremony was hosted by Deputy Speaker Wanda Nowicka, Poland’s leading campaigner against discrimination and for women’s rights. The exhibition was brought to the Parliament on the initiative of Robert Biedron MP, the founder of Campaign Against Homophobia and a longtime ally of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. Since autumn 2013, Robert Biedron is the General Rapporteur on LGBT rights in the Parliamentary Assembly of […]

Warsaw’s inhabitants stood in solidarity with their African neighbours who were targeted by racists. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, together with Projekt: Polska, organized a civic action to show solidarity and paint over large racist graffiti that appeared by the entrances of the African restaurant La Mama and a nearby African shop. Both sites are located in the Muranow district, known as the area of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto during the Nazi occupation, and they are near the Polonia Warsaw football ground. The La Mama restaurant is a key meeting point […]

The anti-racism ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has teamed up with the Football is Beautiful Foundation and numerous other partners for a joint ‘Friends of Football Day’ series of events taking place on 8 June to celebrate the power of football to unite across differences and promote social inclusion. More than 300 football matches, community festivals and other grass-roots events were organized across Poland on the ‘Friends of Football Day’, marking the anniversary of the kick-off of the historic European Football Championships which took place in Poland and Ukraine in 2012. A […]

The Poland-Ukraine World Cup qualifying game at the National Stadium in Warsaw provided an opportunity for both nations to celebrate the legacy of Euro 2012 through anti-racism and pro-diversity activities organized by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. Thousands of fans and hundreds of journalists received Polish and Ukrainian-language leaflets with information about anti-racist activities run by ‘NEVER AGAIN’ and the FARE network. An anti-discrimination manifesto was read out on the stadium tannoy shortly before kick-off and a video reminding of the Euro 2012 ‘Respect Diversity’ message was shown on the big […]

A new report from a Warsaw based anti-racism group documents the number of racist and discriminatory incidents in the host countries for the 2012 European Championships. The report called ‘Hateful’ has been produced by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association in cooperation with Football Against Prejudices (Ukraine), as part of the FARE network Eastern European Monitoring Centre. It covers an 18 month period from September 2009 to March 2011, detailing 195 individual incidents involving football in Poland and Ukraine. The authors describe the numbers of incidents reported as ‘giving cause for concern’ […]

A Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) consultation meeting took place in Kiev on 2 May. The informal meeting was well attended, which illustrates a strong interest in common activities against racism in football among Ukrainian FARE partners. It is also a testimony to the networking work in Ukraine conducted by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association in frames of the FARE East European Development Project. Among others, the following groups and organizations were represented: the Football Against Prejudices coalition, African and Indian migrant communities, the Congress of National Minorities in Ukraine, […]