EURO 2021

On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association published the ‘Brown Book’ – documentation of racist, xenophobic and homophobic crimes and acts of discrimination in Poland in the years 2020-2023. It also covers discriminatory behaviour at stadiums and racist incidents involving football hooligans. The long-time author of the ‘Brown Book’ was the late Marcin Kornak (1968-2014), founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, social justice activist and poet. He was the mind behind social campaigns promoting respect and diversity, among them he […]

After a break in live-audience football games caused by the epidemic, racist slogans and banners have returned to stadiums. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association noted a surge in activity of those who use football to manifest their endorsement of Janusz Walus, a Polish-born far-right activist serving a life sentence for a racist murder in the Republic of South Africa. During a top flight match between teams Lechia Gdansk and Legia Warszawa (15 July), hooligans from Gdansk again displayed a banner with Walus’s name and picture and the slogan ‘Nothing will break […]

We have been waiting very long for really well-prepared football stadium. We were jealous of other countries, but in the end we constructed beautiful stadiums. We have in Gdansk, Poznan and Wroclaw modern facilities for Euro 2012, but the real showcase is the National Stadium in Warsaw. The National Stadium was built in place of the former Tenth Anniversary Stadium, which in recent years has had nothing to do with sports. A place of the largest bazaar in Europe was occupied by an impressive stadium with a red and white […]

Polish football fans have celebrated the launch of the biggest stadium for this year’s Euro 2012 finals with a free music festival and fireworks display. The newly-constructed National Stadium in Warsaw will host the opening match of the four-yearly tournament on June 8 when co-hosts Poland take on Euro 2004 winners Greece in Group A. The first 40,000 fans to arrive on Sunday were given the chance to see Polish pop acts including VooVoo i Haydamaky, Zakopower, Coma, T. Love and Lady Pank. The at the 50,000-seat arena, which will […]

Thanks to the Euro 2012 Adidas wants to be the leader in the market of football clothes in our country. The company will take a lot of marketing and promotional activities. – Warsaw has changed. Trends from the West are very visible in the city. Your capital city looks like major cities in Europe. Young people look the same and have fashionable clothes – says Herbert Heiner, Adidas Managing Director. Adidas is, of course, number 1 when it comes to soccer in the world and European championships are one of […]

Tottenham Hotspur are 8/1 with bookmaker to win the competition after being drawn with Irish side Shamrock Rovers, Rubin Kazan and PAOK in the group stage of the Europa League.

Spurs, who are also 10/3 to finish in the top four of the Premier League and…

UEFA-recommended accommodation centres are approached as basis for individual national teams for Euro 2012. The drawing of groups for the finals will take place in Kiev on December 2. Each participant of the finals has the right to point out a single accommodation centre in Poland and Ukraine and two substitute centres. The UEFA-recommended accommodation centre list, published on October 1, 2010, includes 17 Ukrainian and 21 Polish centres. The list does not include a centre in Grodzisk Wielkopolski already booked by the Polish national soccer team. This is the […]

Poland have appointed local Franciszek Smuda as coach in place of sacked Dutchman Leo Beenhakker. Having missed out on a World Cup berth and qualifying automatically as hosts for Euro 2012, Smuda’s first competitive game is more than two and a half years away. Smuda, who is the national team’s 44th coach, has a contract until the end of the European Championship in which Poland are guaranteed an automatic place as co-hosts with Ukraine. Smuda replaces temporary coach Stefan Majewski, whose team lost the last two games of the 2010 […]

Last week UEFA, the governing soccer body in Europe, finally announced the four Polish cities that will host Euro 2012 championship games. Of the six candidate cities named two years ago, Warsaw, Poznań, Wrocław and Gdańsk were chosen. That left authorities and residents in Kraków and Chorzów, which were selected as alternate cities when Poland originally placed its bid for Euro 2012, extremely disappointed. The rebuilt of the Public Stadium in Cracow is slightly different from the rest of the facilities prepared for Euro 2012. The rebuilt of the stadium […]

Uefa will announce the list of host cities for Euro 2012 next week and everyone wants to keep hold of their slice of the financial pie. These are a big few days for Ukrainian football. On Thursday, they will find out who will be their first representatives in a European final for 23 years, as Shakhtar Donetsk host Dynamo Kyiv in the second leg of their Uefa Cup semi-final, a 1-1 first-leg draw having seemingly handed Shakhtar the initiative, even if they were second best for much of the game. […]