Poland, Panorama and progressMichał Zachodny | 29 May 2012
Last night's Panorama showed a painfully sensationalist and biased view of watching football in Poland, argues Michal Zachodny. I’ve been in the stadium when it’s happened. I have witnessed as my club gets hammered by their fierce rivals, losing five goals on the way down to the third division. The news have broken up pretty quickly on the stands, soon everybody knew. Something had happened, indeed. Just on the street leading to the stadium, two huge groups, two armies of hooligans have clashed. Later it was announced that police arrested almost 230 football hooligans. One person died.
That was in Wroclaw in 2003, when Śląsk played Arka Gdynia. On the Grabiszynska street, the armies of allies of both clubs clashed, with different weapons and one goal. Nothing that happened there was about football.
That was also the first time, that, as a teenager, I was told not to ever go to a match again.
Up to this day, I’m very glad I didn’t listen to my parents.
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Fast forward nine years to 30th April 2012 and I’m in front of my TV, watching the Krakow derby, a game not to be missed by any person that is interested in Polish football. I shake my head, almost cover my ears. I can’t believe it, it is even worse than before. The non-stop abuse coming from the home and away end, Wisła and Cracovia fans, racism and anti-Semitic chanting. “No, not before the Euros…” – this is the first thing that comes to my mind.
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During my time in Polish football, roughly fifteen out of twenty-five years of my life, I cannot say that I have been through the worst of Polish football. I have been gassed by the police, I have been threatened by hooligans, I have seen scuffles and I have stood in front of an old man with his kid that was shouting monkey noises each time a certain player of the club he was a fan of, Benjamin Imeh by the way, made contact with the ball.
Even with the stories I have heard, with the problems I’m aware of, which I see almost each weekend, which are described by the press, shown on television, I would never be able to say that a football fan has to stay away from Poland just to avoid being beaten/stabbed to death.
It is simply wrong to show a nation as passionate about football as Poles are as a hardcore of anti-Semites, racists and hooligans. I’m not trying to say there aren’t problems present in Polish stadiums, there clearly are. But it is, however, very irresponsible to make as much noise as possible about it and then hope it happens just to prove one’s own point.
The worst games I have seen this season in Polish top-tier football were the derbies – the ones of Lodz (ŁKS vs Widzew) and Krakow (Cracovia vs Wisła). The latter is even more interesting, if someone from the BBC is willing to investigate – despite obvious hate shared by both clubs, which is shown as much on the stands as on the streets of one of the most beautiful cities in that part of Europe, local authorities are doing as much as possible to deny that the problem still existing in Krakow is simply connected only to football.
Only lately, I have heard numerous stories about brutal clashes of groups from different districts of Krakow involving attacks in the middle of the night, stabbing, beating and so on – nothing that looks nice and what is hidden by those involved behind the ‘Holy War’ between Wisła and Cracovia.
When in 2011, after that kind of attack in the middle of the day, one person died and the media quickly dressed it up as a football hooligan story – unfortunately, there were less reporters a day later, when police spokesman and representatives of Cracovia’s and Wisła’s supporters club denied the connections between the murder and football. Gangs, as you would guess, exist even here.
At Wisła, one of the most important and loved players, Maor Melikson, is Jewish. He is a crowd favourite, even in as fruitless season as he had this term. He is not a target of any anti-Semitic attack, and he has never struggled for popularity at Reymonta stadium.
At Cracovia, one of the most important and loved players is black – Saidi Ntibazonkiza. He is also a crowd favorite, even in a season tainted by relegation and disaster. He is not a target of any racist abuse, and he has never struggled for popularity at Cracovia’s stadium either.
Yet when both clubs meet, from the stands you can hear almost only the abuse, very often anti-Semitic, pointed at the other set of supporters and at the other club. This is unacceptable, and this is a disaster for every move the same people made to invite over 2000 kids to one of earlier games and learn them how to create healthy and fantastic atmosphere.
I cannot hide the problem nor do I want to – at each ground this season there were similar problems, even if it only was about the minority, numbers so small that at growing stadiums in Poland they are almost unheard. But once in a while these stories come up again – fans of Legia showing a racist flag in Lisbon, then the Lodz derby, and then Krakow…
Yet each accident that makes the headlines should be put in a perspective – for example, did we have, in Poland, cancelled pre-match handshakes because of racism trials? Were there players booed only because they stood up to the abuse they have received? Had we seen managers defending their own players when they clearly have said the wrong thing?
I’m far from comparing the situation in both countries, but even when I have seen people comparing Poland to the situation in the dark ages of English football, this is wrong – Poles are not racist, stadiums are not full of the crap shown on Panorama and our stadiums of still rising quality are safe. In only last four years, Poland have made a huge step forward in guaranteeing safety to football fans in stadiums, even if we have no experience of hosting such a tournament.
The problem is not that the fans coming to Poland should feel in danger of losing their lives because of their race or religion or nationality. Panorama got the whole idea of making a documentary wrong, because they went for sensation rather than the debate or looking at the problem from the inside.
“We shook hands like the white men always did” – said the president of the Polish Football Association, ex-striker, (ex-)legend, Grzegorz Lato. When the “Never Again” campaign against racism on terraces in Poland made a report on the issue in 2011 and invited media and all representatives of Polish clubs, only those from Warsaw bothered to come and see what is discussed. Not even the league authorities decided to visit the event.
The problem is in the heads of those that think it may be swept under the carpet, those that think that with growing numbers of fans coming to the games, bigger and newer stadiums, it will naturally disappear among crowds. It is not happening, yet they – the authorities of Polish football – decide to stay silent, organize one-off acts during the games, rather than make the cut deeper and start from where they should with the issue. The bans and punishments are delivered, yet that will hardly teach the lesson or inform the youngest of supporters how wrong these “fans” are.
I am not one of them, nor will I let people think that the whole country’s football is infected with violence, racism and anti-Semitism. Of course it’s possible to pick incidents out of context and make a video like that. It is possible with every league, every country and after watching the programme it is even hard to blame Sol Campbell for his “coffin” comments – he didn’t know, he probably thought he was shown how it really is in Poland and Ukraine.
The biggest problem I have with the Panorama documentary is not that it is clearly blown up out of all proportion, tendentious or made in this way to scare people off and to make a cheap sensation. It is because it will hurt thousands that made the effort to have the Euros in Poland and Ukraine, to prepare the cities, to make it happen, the ones that were happy to warmly welcome fans from all over the world for a month. To show the famous “Polish hospitality”, and I don’t mean the one presented on Monday’s night programme on the BBC.
Many will believe. Many will stay away, avoid the danger, avoid “the coffin”. For once, I would love to deny the reports, laugh it off, put examples that Poles are proud of… but it doesn’t work like that, does it? There are people ready to tackle the problem, especially among the fans who have finally noticed that how they are seen depends only on their actions. Should the fight with ugly stereotypes from Polish stadiums be taken by a serious portion of similar ones shown in one documentary?
Euro 2012 helped Poland to make the civilization jump in football development, it will also make tackling the issues still present much, much easier. In fact, it has already had that effect. Even though there is nothing to be proud of about actions of the league and domestic association in kicking racism and anti-Semitism out of stadiums, there is a move forward into the right direction. Progress, that could be very easily damaged by a single comment. Just like the one Sol Campbell made.
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It is Śląsk Wroclaw vs Arka Gdynia again, the 2012 Polish Cup quarter-final, this time in the new stadium. 20,000 inside, compared to the 7,000 in the old one, almost exactly nine years from the battle on the streets of Wroclaw. However, on this occasion, there is not even a hint of abuse, despite the intensity of the game, high emotions, time running out, the defeat getting closer – the atmosphere is hugely down to the effort of few thousand kids invited to the game by the club. They learn how to chant and sing, without any racism, hate or anti-Semitism. Thankfully, one day, they will come back.
Step by step, the progress is made.
