Xenophobia in Sport
The clash of fans at the stadium in Warsaw.
In 2014, there were 34 incidents of hate crime or hate speech associated with football fans. A number of threats was connected to the fans of “Lodz” football club. Around February 17, the fan-club website of LKS “Lodz” published a video, offering the potential sponsors to play a game of “Hit the Jew”, by throwing darts at a picture of a Jew on the club’s wall . On September 29, during the match between the teams of “Lech Poznan” and “Widzew Lodz» Poznan fans sang: “Your home in Auschwitz, Poland knows all about that the Red Army will be burned.” There were also other anti-Semitic slogans: «Gas the RTS.” RTS - is an abbreviation of the words “Sports Association of workers.” And also: “To hell with the Jews, workers of the trains - we are with you” . During a football match between the Polish Lech FC and the Lithuanian Zalgiris FC in Poznan on August 9, 2013, Polish fans stretched a giant stretch in the stadium with the inscription “Lithuanian scum, kneel before the Polish master”.
On October 22, during a UEFA game between Metallist (Kharkiv) and Legia (Warsaw), Polish fans displayed a banner with a clear territorial claim of the Polish state on the currently Ukrainian city of Lviv and Lithuanian Vilnius.
In August 2015, the Lech FC was fined by UEFA for 50'000 euros its fans displaying a racist banner during a match against Bosnia and Herzegovina team.
