EURO 2021

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, which runs the campaign ‘Let’s Kick Racism out of Stadiums’, held an online debate on fighting antisemitism and bigotry at stadiums in Poland and Europe. Antisemitism continues to be a serious issue, both inside and outside football stadiums, in Poland and worldwide. However, more often than not it is also glossed over by football associations and the media. Participants in the debate presented the results of the international educational project ‘Changing the Chants’, conducted in cooperation with Anne Frank House (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and two football clubs: […]

For Polish team Euro 2012 is the most important football tournament in history. As the tournament co-hosts with Ukraine we will host the 14 best representations of the Old Continent. This will be our second start in the European Championship, the first four years ago on the fields of Austria and Switzerland we finished in the group stage with just one point gained. Now, as before four years ago, Polish players goal is a minimum to advance from the group. The task was made easier for us by the December […]

European championship favorite is Spain. Poland is among the group of teams that should gain promotion to the quarter-finals – said in Warsaw Joachim Loewthe, German national team coach. German coach – just like other coaches of the participants of the Euro 2012 – on Thursday took part in a two-day organizational workshops before the tournament in Poland and Ukraine. Similar meetings are held before all great events. In addition to the coaches there are also team managers, team doctors and security and transport officers. – Our minimal goal during […]

The project of the stadium was executed by the Rhode-Kellermann-Wawrowsky company from Dusseldorf, which has also built the famous stadium in Gelsenkirchen and in Hanover. In April 2008, works on the preparation of the ground for the construction of the stadium began and a few months later ground works were started. The official commencement of construction of the stadium was in May 2009. The works were to be finished at the end of 2010, but this deadline was not met due to various reasons. On 9 June 2011 PGE Arena […]

With the Polish venues on track in their preparations for co-hosting Euro 2012, the lingering concern for the country’s football fans is whether they will have a national team capable of putting up a respectable performance. Coach Franciszek Smuda has seen his side fall as far as 73rd in FIFA’s admittedly farcical ranking system, with the dearth of playing talent a regular topic for the country’s footballing media. Many wonder what happened to the squad that won the European Under-18 Championship in Finland in 2001. That team included Tomasz Kuszczak, […]

Coach: Leo Beenhakker Group B: Germany, Croatia, Austria, and Poland Introduction Cause For Optimism There has never been a better time to be a Polish football fan. A burgeoning squad developing in self belief under the guidance of one of the shrewdest managers around, the time is right for Poland to shake off their tags as international under achievers at Euro 2008. Qualification for the tournament already indicated that Poland are becoming a force to be reckoned with. Drawn into Group A, with 8 teams, it was always going to […]

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 […]

During the biggest open-air free music festival in Europe, Pol’and’Rock (4-6 August), also known as Polish Woodstock, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association organized a football tournament promoting the message of ‘Let’s Kick Racism out of the Stadiums’, involving teenage players who are refugees from Ukraine. Together with the other participants, they manifested their protest against the war. On another festival day a meeting was held with the rock band Strachy na Lachy (Empty Threats) at the information stand of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. For many years, this group has been involved […]

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 […]

A radical-right media outlet has attacked Poland’s top footballer Robert Lewandowski and promoted xenophobic conspiracy theories around the COVID-19 pandemic. The Warsaw-based anti-racist ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has noted a recent broadcast on the ‘Idz Pod Prad’ (‘Go Against the Tide’) online television program which targeted Lewandowski. The channel regularly refers to the coronavirus as ‘the Chinese plague’ and promotes a conspiracy theory about its origin. Against scientific evidence, it accuses the Chinese of intentionally producing and spreading the virus. It advocates a military conflict with China and announces, in the […]