EURO 2021

For our first pick of this week, we will turn our eyes to the Polish Ekstraklasa, to watch a match between Podbeskidzie Bielsko Biala – MKS Pogon Szczecin. Let’s look at the numbers and try to pick the best choice: The home team will be the 15th and penultimate placed Podbeskidzie. They have 5 wins, 6 draws, and 13 losses, 21 points in 24 games, with 24 goals scored and a terrible 50 conceded, which gives us a -26 goal difference. This team is not doing well at all near […]

This week we have a top of the table clash in La Liga, as current leaders Real Madrid travel to surprise package Celta Vigo. Real sit top on goal difference having only conceded 2 in their opening 8 league games, winning 5 and drawing 3. Celta will take confidence into the match, having beaten the third team tied for 1st place, Barcelona, 4-1 back in September. A brace from former Liverpool flop Iago Aspas in the match, suggesting that Brendan Rodgers may have prematurely let the Spanish forward leave Anfield. Real […]

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 […]

STS – the largest bookmaker in Poland, which also operates in several European markets – won in the SBC Awards 2019 the “Omni-channel Operator of the Year (Sports & Casino)” award. Back in October, STS was nominated in the SBC Awards 2019 in two categories – “Sportsbook of the Year” and “Omni-channel Operator of the Year (Sports & Casino)”. Making the company an even more recognizable player in the industry on a global scale “Today we are pleased to announce that in the second of these categories, not only were […]

The biggest open-air free music festival in Europe, Pol’and’Rock, also known as Polish Woodstock, took place from 1 to 4 August 2019. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association organized a series of anti-racism activities accompanying the festival. The festival line up included internationally known performers who oppose racism and discrimination such as Gogol Bordello, Skunk Anansie, Ziggy Marley, and Prophets of Rage. The last band includes former members of Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Public Enemy and Cypress Hill. The festival stand of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association was the venue of a […]

This summer, the biggest open-air free festival in Europe hosted a unique edition of the ‘Let’s Kick Racism Out Of Stadiums’ tournament, organized by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. At the Pol’and’Rock Festival (also known as Polish Woodstock), the players symbolically represented countries from all over the world. In the final play-off, Poland played against Iran, while the fair play award went to Croatia. A match was also played between the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association’s team together with artists involved in the ‘Music Against Racism’ campaign on one side and the team […]

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 […]

Riding the wave of enthusiasm caused by Euro 2012 many Poles started dreaming. When will an event of this kind take place in Poland again? An analysis conducted by sport redactors it shows that it would be relatively easiest go obtain rights to organize the summer Olympic Games in Warsaw in 2024. It is also possible to organize the football Mundial, but not before 2030. An analysis by Michał Kiedrowski. Poland surely has some assets to organize football Mundial or summer Olympic Games in future, but it won’t happen within […]