Panorama's "Stadiums Of Hate" - exposing racism and anti-semitism in Poland and Ukraine

Panorama's "Stadiums Of Hate" - exposing racism and anti-semitism in Poland and Ukraine
Football365
John Nicholson and Alan Tyers
31/05/12

If you haven't seen this week's Panorama, we urge you to check it out. Euro 2012: Stadiums Of Hate (Mon, 8.30pm, BBC1) can be viewed on the iPlayer here.

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Presenter Chris Rogers had spent a month going to games in Poland and the Ukraine to see what the matchday experience might be like. The first conclusion is that there are some truly horrible people in Poland and the Ukraine, and that some of them like going to the football and behaving like utter dicks.

Rogers' experiences in Poland seemed to centre on anti-Semitic chanting, graffiti and general objectionable behaviour. Derby games in both Lodz and Krakow showed both sets of fans chanting anti-Jewish slogans at each other.

As well as being vile and totally unacceptable, there was also a pathetic quality about the Polish stuff. It was clear that certain sections of support in lots of clubs hated Jews, and had apparently taken the word Jew to be a sort of all-purpose put-down or taunt, a bit like when a playground cottons on to the word 'gaylord' or 'retard'. "You're a Jew...no, you're a Jew...you're a Jewy Jew" etc. Which is not to say, of course, that these abusive words are not backed up by physical violence and intimidation on a daily basis, and nor should anyone with even one brain cell need reminding of their particular historical power in that part of Europe. All that said, this particular documentary had captured only verbal bad behaviour towards ethnic monitories in Poland. Either way, Britain's many Polish migrants must have been cringing.

Brainboxes of various allegiances apparently go around altering graffiti so 'Newcastle United' becomes 'Jewcastle' or 'Toon Army' becomes 'Jew-n Army' (Polish equivalents obviously; we're not saying the programme was exposing the hidden horror of Anti-Geordie persecution). The programme didn't take particular pains to elucidate if 'such-and-such a club are the worst offenders', and it seemed at times that pretty much each team was as bad as the next for having what we all like to tell ourselves is 'a minority of idiots'.

As is often the case when racists and hate crime-types are put on TV the overall effect is to show just of how utterly backward and sad these people are. There was a slight unintentional comedy with two different sets of arseholes all calling each 'Jew club' etc.

Two black players, Ugo Ukah - who was very briefly at QPR and was late of Widzew Lodz - and Prince Okachi, who still plays for Widzew, had predictably depressing accounts of racist abuse from the stands, from fellow players, and no support or intervention whatsoever from the authorities. Sol Campbell, a dignified and impressive talking head here, expressed dismay and real pain at the situation.

However, it has to be said that Kharkiv in the Ukraine made Lodz look like Greenwich Village. Rogers got some brilliant footage of a Metalist game with, he says, 2,000 fans giving it the always charming Nazi Salute. This was backed up with a grimly hilarious interview with a Colonel in the local police force claiming:

"Nazi salute? Oh, no no no no. These people were merely pointing at the opposing fans." If nothing else, you had to admire the truly world-class brass neck on display.

The footage of Metalist fans beating up on some visiting Indian students who were supporting the same team as them was disgusting; and when the programme got into meeting the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Ultras who practice knife-fighting and military combat techniques, Rogers was in full Donal MacIntrye territory. It looked like pretty scary stuff, as potentially serious as their pathetic little clubhouse with flags of fellow nasties around the world (SS Lazio...The Confederate Flag...The, erm, St George Cross with ENGLAND on it) was sad and laughable.

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