26.09.2014 “Red card Against Racism: diplomats support Roma football club”

Radio Praha (Kraus 2014) and Le Matin (2014) report on a charity match between a Czech Rroma soccer team and a diplomatic team with the ambassadors from Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and Denmark. Organised by the Swedish ambassador Annika Jagander, the game is meant to draw attention to the discrimination against Rroma: “In the still young season, two teams have refused to compete against the TJ Junior Roma, and instead preferred to pay 3,000 crowns (about 109 Euros) of fine. As a reason, the county division cites an incident dating back to 2011. A match between FC Děčín und Lokomotiva Děčín then ended in a brawl and the police had to intervene. […] “Football and sports should actually bring people closer together: both people of the same as well as from different nationalities. That this no longer works, we feel very bad about. That’s why we want to show the red card to racism” (Kraus 2014). Libor Šimeček, chairman of the Czech Football Association, meanwhile denied that the case has anything to do with racism. One will now examine in detail why five of the eleven teams in the league do not want to play against the Rroma team, he stated. The club from Frantiskov had announced that they did not want to play against the team because of the aggressive behaviour of the players of TJ Junior Roma. The Czech Republic has a population of 300,000 to 400,000 Rroma. Exact figures do not exist. Many are integrated and have a job. However, numerous are also affected by strong exclusion and social problems. Particularly, since the economic crisis and the strengthened nationalism that occurred since the end of the Eastern Bloc. Also, in several schools there is still a segregation of ethnic Czechs and Rroma (compare Le Monde 2014).