Therefor Bayern’s travelling army raised a well-noted protest at Arsenal’s ground, when the two sides met on 4 November. For 5 minutes into the match, big parts of the away sector remained empty and a big banner showed what Munich supporters thought about the prices for 90 minutes of football in England. It said “WITHOUT FANS FOOTBALL IS NOT WORTH A PENNY” and was accompanied by applause from the Arsenal supporters. Now Bayern’s supporter groups Schickeria München and our members from Club Nr. 12 published an open letter to launch a discussion amongst European football fans. We absolutely support them on this important issue and invite you to join the discussion – find their statement below:
Our thoughts are with the friends and families of the victims. Likewise, our very best wishes go to all people in Paris and particularly those friends and members of FSE in France who survived the attacks at the stadium and at the other sites. Some of them survived almost by coincidence but certainly all of their lives and those of many others have changed forever.
The away game in Valencia was different. Very different. Valencia CF provided KAA Gent supporters with all the information they needed and the SLO’s of both teams exchanged information in favour of the supporters. Everything was arranged to have a good time and sporting rivalry during the game. Buffalo supporters have the reputation to follow their team fanatically, but also to cause no problems at all.
You have now direct access to the most important areas through the main page and in the social media feed, you can follow social media activities of our members from across Europe!
The organising core group consisting of German FSE members BAFF (Alliance of Active Football Fans) together with the FSE-Committee decided to give the next 1000 Euros to the Ultra group Corillo and the Fans Project Freiburg for their work with young refugees. Several active fan groups in Freiburg were among the first to organise collections for the campaign under the name of “Second Fan Shirt Freiburg” last year, while players and the club also contributed merchandise.
At the premises of the “House of Football Cultures” in Berlin/Germany, the members of the FSE Committee evaluated the European Football Fans Congress in Belfast, and received updates from the FSE Fans’ Embassies Division’s project activities for EURO2016 and the FSE Anti-Discrimination Division. Naturally, club competitions were also on the agenda, and topics of discussion included ticket pricing for the European Club Competition Finals and current inquiries such as those from members in Slovakia and Northern Ireland who were affected by UEFA restrictions at their recent European matches.
The Anti-Discrimination Division (ADD) within Football Supporters Europe (FSE) was founded to organise joint activities among football fans against discrimination and to connect FSE members engaging in activities in this area from across the continent and beyond. It´s overall aim is to extend the network of football fans active against discrimination, our knowledge, to learn from each other, to increase the number of cross-country activities and to widen our expertise as fans in this field.
At this year's Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Football Supporters Europe (FSE) at the European Football Fans Congress #EFFC2015 in Belfast / Northern Ireland, a resolution was passed, calling for supporters to address FIFA's main sponsors demanding reform of the organisation - led by an independent commission to enforce robust safeguards against corruption. The same resolution was passed only two weeks later by the membership of our national members from the Football Supporters Federation (FSF) in England & Wales at their AGM.
The Minister of Justice at the time, Morten Bødskov, facilitated meetings and received feedback from several stakeholders – fans, police, ministry of justice and the League. An action plan “Gode Fodboldoplevelser for Alle” (Great Football experiences for All) was created. The main parts of the action plan put a focus on the need to introduce socio-preventive measures like dialogue with fans, event policing, good hosting principles, a plan to improve the training of security staff, and similar initiatives. However, one of the points in the plan also talks about the clubs “looking into the possibility of creating a joint access system”. Now, the Danish League read this as “we have to implement mandatory ID cards for away fans” - and this is where the story begins…
Tell your friends to join us and include the EFFC 2015 as part of your holiday and experience more of what the Emerald Isle has to offer. Our hosts, the Amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters Clubs (AONISC) and the Irish Football Association (IFA) are looking forward to show their hospitality in Belfast.
We believe that these latest revelations are symptomatic of deep-seated and systemic failures of governance within FIFA, an organisation that has lacked any transparency, accountability or genuine democratic processes under the ‘leadership’ of Sepp Blatter.
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