Euro Tickets to Carry the Anti-Racism Message

The tickets being printed for the Euro games in SwissAustria will be part of a tournament-wide attack against racism. Every one of the 1.05 million tickets will contain the words “Unite Against Racism” on the bottom.

It’s part of a multi-pronged approach:

“Campaigning measures in Austria and Switzerland will include activities at all finals matches under the theme of Unite Against Racism – notably, a specially commissioned advertising spot, articles in match programmes and pitch-side boards spreading the message, as well as branded captains’ armbands and stewards’ bibs. These activities will be given a powerful focus at the semi-finals in Vienna and Basel, when the team captains are expected to read out an announcement before kick-off.”

This is great, as far as it goes. But how does this fit with a recent quote from Dick Advocaat, coach of the UEFA Cup winning club Zenit St. Petersburg:

“The problem is our fans,” he says. “I would be happy to sign anyone but the fans don’t like black players. I don’t understand how they could pay so much attention to skin colour. For me, there’s no difference between white, black or red. But the fans are the most important thing Zenit have. That’s why, in future, I have to ask them outright how they’ll react if we sign a dark-skinned player. If the fans don’t agree with me, I won’t do it. I won’t buy a player who won’t be accepted by the fans.”

In other words, no dark-skinned players for Zenit. And it’s not as if St. Petersburg is some tiny backwoods little village.

And it’s not as if Zenit’s policy has no effect on the makeup of the national team (picture in October, 2007.) Six of the callups — almost 25% –of the Russian team hail from Zenit St. Petersburg, more than from any other club.

As long as one of the teams is made up of a large number of players from a club that will not accept dark skin, I’m thinking that words on a ticket won’t accomplish much.