More than 300 soccer matches, community festivals and other events were organised across Poland and Ukraine on Saturday 8 June to mark Friends of Football Day on the anniversary of the kick-off of last summer’s Uefa European Championship.
More than 300 soccer matches, community festivals and other events were organised across Poland and Ukraine on Saturday 8 June to mark Friends of Football Day on the anniversary of the kick-off of last summer’s Uefa European Championship.
The day was an initiative of the anti-racism association Never Again in tandem with the Football is Beautiful Foundation and other partners intended to celebrate the power of soccer to unite people despite their differences and promote social inclusion.
Endorsements for the day came from such high-profile figures in the world of soccer as Robert Lewandowski, star striker of the Polish national team and Uefa Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund.
In Warsaw, a multi-cultural team of the city’s residents brought together by Never Again and Project Integration participated in a high-profile event at the Polonia Warsaw stadium under the motto 'Let's Kick Racism Out Of The Stadiums'.
Teams representing many of Warsaw’s cultural institutions, a visiting side from Moldova and the Polonia Wilno/Polonija Vilnius team – representing the Polish minority in Lithuania – played in the day-long tournament, which was accompanied by an anti-racist exhibition, a family festival and dance classes.
Elsewhere, Never Again also co-hosted a soccer and social event in the Ukrainian capital Kiev with the local African community and the Football Against Racism Europe (Fare) network.
Never Again is a regional partner of the Fare network and was established in 1996 as an anti-racist educational and monitoring organisation. In 2012 it implemented the ‘Respect Diversity – Football Unites’ social responsibility project that accompanied the Uefa European Championships in Poland and Ukraine.
