Indicator history

The problem of racism in sports is a serious one that risks being under-estimated because of lack or paucity of data. Yet, no data is collected and made publicly available on the subject by official bodies and the availability of unofficial data is scarce and discontinuous. A National Observatory of Sport Events was set up about ten years ago following a series of violent and deadly incidents during football matches. However, the Observatory does not include racist violence among its scope and thus, does not provide specific data on racist violence, nor has it put in place any positive initiative to counter it. Thus, the main sources of information for this section are two monitoring reports on racism and anti-racism in football published by the association Panafrica, media articles on racism in football, semi-structured interviews with key actors or observers and results from queries in national online media archives. Information from the above sources indicates that the most common targets of racist acts by supporters and athletes or players during sports events are Black athletes while indirect discrimination deriving from regulatory provisions affect non-EU citizens as a whole. Manifestations of anti-Semitism by elements of the political extreme right and neo-Nazi groups are not completely absent and in line with current upsurge in xenophobic attitudes and hostility towards the Roma, Sinti and Traveller populations and Rumanians, athletes and players identified as being of any one of these origins have come under severe stigmatisation during football matches.

Source:

RAXEN Italy, ‘Preventing racism, xenophobia and related intolerance in sport across the European Union’ COSPE by Udo C. Enwereuzor and L. Di Pasquale March 2009 - http://www.cirdi.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ITRacism-in-Sports.pdf