Indicator history

There is no comprehensive and continuous monitoring system in place regarding racism in sport. There are no official statistics on racist incidents covering all sport; such statistics are only available for professional football.  The Gleichbehandlungskommission (GBK) [Equal Treatment Commission (ETC)] has published one decision concerning racism in swimming.

Football is the only sport which is mentioned in the governmental reports on the protection of the constitution and which is monitored – though not on a continuous basis – by the NGO FairPlay. The UEFA plays an important role in monitoring racism in UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup games. Racist incidents are much better documented in men’s than in women’s football and better in professional than in amateur football.

ZARA – Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-Arbeit does not actively monitor sports activities, but sometimes gets reports on racist incidents in sports.

Therefore it is rather difficult to obtain information on racist incidents in sports. As racism in sports is not monitored in a comprehensive and continuous way, it is not possible to say which racist incidents are more common than others.

A study on Racism, ethnic discrimination and exclusion of migrants and minorities in sport published by the Fundamental Rights Agency found out that incidents of racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Gypsism are occuring throughout Europe. In Austria it is reported that in football there is significant incidence of abusive discriminating behaviour along ethnic lines. Most affected are people from Turkey or with a Turkish background. Furthermore the report says that racist and xenophobic extremist movements seek to infiltrate the football club scenes. This includes the displaying of fascist or neo-Nazi symbols and the singing of racist, anti-Semitic and right-extremist chants. There are also incidents of anti-Semitism mentioned by the report i.e. slandering and threatening of players for Jewish teams by players of other teams or spectators or anti-Semitic slanders and chants directed at fans and players of clubs that have or once had a Jewish background or roots in the Jewish community. During the UEFA European Football championship 2008 in Austria the study reported an increased interest in racism and discrimination in football. However, the level of awareness decreased again after the tournaments.

Source: http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/attachments/Report-racism-sport_EN.pdf; http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/BMI_Verfassungsschutz/VSB_2009_Online.pdf; http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/BMI_Verfassungsschutz/BVT_VSB_2011_online.pdf; http://fairplay.vidc.org/aktuelle-news/