FSE's support for Bijeli Andeli

On the International Day Against Homophobia on 19 February 2010, initiated by the FARE partner The Justin Campaign and supported by FSE, the fans' group Bijeli Andeli of NK Zagreb took a stand against homophobia in football. Amongst others, they prepared  a banner saying “With Football Against Homophobia” and a Rainbow Flag for the match. They also asked the club’s and media’s support to promote their activities.

But rather than supporting this remarkable commitment of a fans' group, the club officials of NK Zagreb obviously decided to give them a hard time: amongst others, until match day the club did not approve their banners, and after the match one could read on the club’s official website about the actions of the Bijeli Anðeli as “the unsuccessful effort of certain organizations to bring matters unrelated to football to stadiums.

The FSE Committee members therefore decided to send a letter to the club president of NK Zagreb and the head of marketing in which FSE declares its full support for the actions taken by the members or Bijeli Anðeli and called upon the club to think of their role model status and proactively support of fans' activities against discrimination in football.

Here you can download our letter of support for Bijeli Anðeli as pdf file

The FARE network also threw its weight behind the cause and sent another statement to the club and published their support for the initiative on their website. ++ Click here to see the FARE statement in support of Bijeli Anðeli++

We will obviously keep in touch with the members of Bijeli Anðeli and hope that our support will help to keep up their committment and get the club officials to rethink their positions - we might have to check back with the club though as we haven't heard from them since we sent the letter about a month ago.

Here you can find some Croatian media coverage on the fans' action:

Jutarnji List (Zagreb national Newspaper)

Slobodna Dalmacija (National Newspaper)