Wednesday the 13th of June 35,000 white handkerchiefs will be handed out nearby the football stadium of Kharkov in the spirit of ’Goodbye Racism’. With the handkerchiefs tens of thousands of football fans will wave goodbye to racism during the game Netherlands – Germany. This idea was brought into existence because of the excessive hooligan violence, racism and homophobia in Poland and Ukraine demonstrated in BBC’s ‘Stadium of Hate’.
Goodbye Racism is an initiative of Dutch entrepreneurs Duncan Stutterheim (party organiser id&t) and Jurriaan Bakker (creative agency blend bureaux) in collaboration with Victoria Koblenko (Dutch actress of Ukrainian origin) and Dutch football connoisseur Barbara Barends.
This initiative came into being because of the documentary ‘Stadiums of Hate’ which was broadcasted by the BBC recently. Reporter Chris Rogers travelled to the two countries that are hosting the UEFA cup this year, and what he encountered was shocking: Polish and Ukrainian supporters wearing T-shirts with anti-Semitic slogans who use excessive violence, scoff at football players of colour, beat up supporters of Asian or Indian descent (even though they are supporting the same team) and do the Nazi salute. The police are just observing and feel no need to interfere.