EURO 2021

  But wait a minute…have UEFA been smoking too many Jamaican cigarettes, or something?We watched with baited breath as UEFA president, Michele Platini (above), stood on stage in Cardiff, Wales, and slowly tore open the envelope. It was between Croatia/Hungary, Italy and Poland/Ukraine. Everyone expected Italy. Half of me didn’t want Poland to win, as I knew I would have to throw together something about the story in about half an hour. The other half of me – the footballing half (the bits with legs and feet) – wanted Poland […]

More medium-class hotels will be built in Poland in preparation for the 2012 European Soccer Championships. Jozef Ratajski from the Polish Tourist Chamber said that the country lacked a sufficient network of rationally priced two and three-star hotels. Andrzej Saja from the Polish Hoteliers’ Economic Chamber pointed out that medium hotel construction would probably be a rising market in coming years. The Championship will certainly be a promotional impulse for Poland, Saja remarked. At the moment there are over 1,320 hotels in Poland. Poland and Ukraine were chosen to co-host […]

Poland is considering enlisting as many as 20,000 prisoners to help build the stadiums, roads and hotels that it desperately needs to co-host the Euro 2012 soccer tournament. Pawel Nasilowski, deputy chief of Poland’s prisons, was quoted by the PAP news agency yesterday as saying that use of the inmates was being considered as part of an EU program to rehabilitate prisoners. Poland is grappling with a shortage of manual labour, particularly of construction workers, amid a booming economy and the departure of hundreds of thousands of Poles to better-paying […]

England head coach Fabio Capello thinks that Euro 2012 will be even harder to win than the World Cup in South Africa two years ago.

Capello’s reign as England boss will end after next year’s finals in Poland and Ukraine, with England 10/1 with bookmaker…

Fabio Capello says Wayne Rooney will not start in any of England’s friendlies ahead of the 2012 European Championships.

Rooney will be suspended for at least the first game of the finals in Poland and Ukraine after being red carded against Montenegro…

Co-founder of the anti-fascist ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association Rafal Pankowski was awarded the prestigious annual Human Rights Distinction by Poland’s Ombudsman Dr Adam Bodnar in a ceremony held in Warsaw’s Old Town on 25 September. The celebratory speech was delivered by Marian Turski, a Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz survivor who is Chairman of the Council for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews and Deputy Chairman of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute as well as a member of the International Auschwitz Council. – ‘I am honoured and grateful […]

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 […]

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 […]

Marcin Kornak, the chairman of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, received two major distinctions for his lifelong work against racism and discrimination. The Man Without Barriers is an annual award given to an outstanding disabled person who breaks down barriers and stereotypes and who is a positive role model in various walks of life. The prize is officially supported by Anna Komorowska, the wife of Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, and Irena Lipowicz, the Human Rights Commissioner. It was handed to Marcin at a special gala event held at Warsaw’s Royal Castle, […]