Contact: Kurt Wachter, Project Coordinator

FairPlay-vidc, Möllwaldplatz 5/3, A-1040 Vienna, Austria

E-mail: wachter@vidc.org, Tel. +43 1 7133594 90, Fax. +43 1 7133594 73

The project

Football for Equality Project

Homophobia: Football’s Last Taboo?

Discrimination based on sexual orientation poses a big problem in sport and in football in particular. Performing professional sport and being a successful athlete while being gay are usually seen as a total contradiction. This kind of casual homophobia has traditionally permeated professional football throughout the administrative, coaching and playing levels of the game. Homophobia in football is carried by invisibility. On one hand there is not a single male player in the European professional leagues who is openly gay; on the other hand it is a common prejudice that female players are stigmatized as ‘all lesbians’. European wide ‘gay’ has become a synonym for everything many fans dislike. One reason why players have not come out until now is because the structures of football are seen as not granting equal rights. The dominant norm is still centered around notions of (white) masculinity like toughness, comradeship, solidarity based on gender and working class virtues. Football will need to recognise lesbian and gay athletes and players and welcome them as part of the sport.

Project Outline

The project “Football for Equality– Challenging racist and homophobic stereotypes in and through football” is a new European initiative carried out by various partner organisations of the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) network together with the European Gay and Lesbian Sports Federation (EGLSF). The project started in November 2009 and will last for 18 months. The main funding for the project comes from the “Fundamental Rights and Citizenship” programme of the European Commission, Directorate-General Justice, Freedom and Security.

The Football for Equality-project aims at:

• using the popularity and universality of football, as a unique entry point to raise awareness on racism and related intolerances (xenophobia, islamophobia, anti-Roma racism and anti-Semitism) and on homophobia.

• to address and link areas of combating racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism on the one hand and the fight against homophobia on the other hand.

• to promote and improve intercultural understanding and tolerance in particular among young people in the European Union.

Project Activities

1. Networking Conference “Football for Equality: Challenging racism and homophobia across Europe” (Vienna, 12-14 December 2009)

Responsible partner: FairPlay-vidc (Austria)

2. Sensitisation Workshops (4 events in France, Italy, Slovakia and Austria)

The interactive workshops target football stakeholders (administrators, coaches, referees, players) so that they understand how stereotypes sustain racism and homophobia and how to challenge stereotypes

Responsible partners: LICRA (France), UISP (Italy), Ludia Proti Rasizmu (Slovakia) and FairPlay-vidc.

3. Tool-kit for young People

Develop educational tools and materials across Europe such as short video films, brochures, hand-outs for teachers, reports, comics, interactive web-sites and make them available online.

Responsible partner: Football Unites Racism Divides -FURD (United Kingdom)

5. Conference Football Against Homophobia (21- 23 May, 2010 in Berlin)

Follow–up to the conference “Football Against Homophobia” which was organised by EGLSF, FARE and the FC Barcelona Penya Blaugrana de Gais i Lesbianes in February 2009 in Barcelona.

Responsible partner: EGLSF (Netherlands)

6. Mondiali Antirazzisti in Casalecchio (July 2010)

Focus the involvement of gay and lesbian football teams as well as debates and films about homophobia.

Responsible partner: Progetto Ultrà (Italy

7. FARE Action Week against Racism and Discrimination in European Football (14 – 26 October 2010)

Particular support for initiatives fighting homophobic stereotypes in football.

More information about the project is available on: www.FairPlay.or.at; www.FAREnet.org; www.EGLSF.info