“It’s a beautiful game”, says Platini, why the ugly things in it? There’s an expression in Finland, life is football (not the other way around), and that perhaps answers the question we’re dealing with. Football, also in Finland, is such a large part of society and life in general that all aspects of it are influenced. If there’s racism in the Finnish society, and I’m sorry to say there is, it’s surely going to be part of the beautiful game as well.
Therefore, what do we conclude about this? Leave it; say it’s the politicians who should deal with it? No, we in football are one of the largest movements in society and as sports men and women we should be the first to realise, this issue is not an obstacle, but an opportunity for another great victory. The dynamics between football and life work both ways and therefore we are also the ones to have the biggest opportunity to make a difference. Life is football and not the other way around; let’s keep on talking about that.
The FA of Finland in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Veikkausliiga (the premier league), Liikkukaa!, a local NGO in the field in Finland, and the Players Union have started a three year program to work against racism and to increase integration of minority groups into existing club football. The set goal is that every football professional in Finland will be educated on the issue, tools for integration are made and a database for information on the issue is accessible in the web. And last but not least, visible campaign is made where the FA of Finland shows that we are serious about curbing the growing scum from the beautiful game.
First year of the program is about to come to an end and progress has been made. Thorough research of the issue has been made, because previously there were no facts about racism in Finnish football. And as expected it was found that racism does exist also in the beautiful game. It is more in the lower divisions and least on the top, where smarter players are also required to have more intelligence. “Rasisti on reppana” –is our campaign slogan and truly we do need to understand that racist people are sorry cases.
Lari Kangas
Programme coordinator
FA of Finland
