A football club set up for asylum seekers in Vienna has found itself pressurised by the Austrian state. Paul Joyce explains
“FC Sans Papiers is a fight against racism and discrimination using modern and elegant means – sport,” explains its president Dr Di-Tutu Bukasa, who founded the side in 2002. Inspired by the French political movement of the same name, the Viennese team offers asylum seekers who lack an Austrian residence permit the chance to play regular lower-league football.
We take playing international football in England for granted but as Steve Menary explains it can be a long fight to be gifted that right
When West Ham signed Valon Behrami from Lazio this summer, he became the club’s first ever Swiss international. His status may change on December 19, when FIFA meet for a second time to consider a membership application from Kosovo, where Behrami was born in 1985.
Playing football 2,500 metres above sea level can be a shock to the system if you’re not used to it. But, argues Chris Taylor, FIFA’s ban on internationals is a victory for double standards and the major powers
You would think that FIFA’s medical department would have better things to do. Player burn-out, drug-taking, even dangerous play – all are areas where world football’s doctors might have something useful to chip in. Instead, they have provided the justification for FIFA’s executive committee to announce on May 27 that henceforward all international football above an altitude of 2,500 metres would be banned.
England’s trip to Tel Aviv was for the most part peaceful, though some in Israel were unhappy not at the excesses of some fans but what was seen as the do-gooding of others, as Shaul Adar explains
With England coming to Israel for the first competitive meeting of the teams, one might expect media coverage revolving around Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and the rest of the star names. After three days in Israel there was one Englishman who stole the limelight from the players, although nobody can remember his name. He was an England fan, bearded, obese, shirtless and sunburned, with a tattoo of Preston North End. Israelis queued for a photo with him and he appeared on TV and in all the papers, usually doing his party trick – licking his own nipple. His soundbites were rather repetitive, like the questions. “I had X beers so far today.” Or, “I went to a whore house in Tel Aviv, a whore house in Jerusalem and I’m looking for a whore house in Nazareth.” He was the star but by no means alone – the crew of a respectable TV magazine show took some fans to a strip club in search of the same story.
Julius Bergmann looks at the alarming recent rise in racism at German matches
Long before Anton Ferdinand and Micah Richards made allegations of verbal abuse from opponents during England Under-21s’ recent win in Leverkusen, German football had been shaken by a series of racially motivated incidents. Werder Bremen striker Patrick Owomoyela was branded as “non-German” by an extreme right party when he was being considered for the 2006 World Cup and Schalke’s Gerald Asamoah, another Germany player, was subject to abuse during a cup tie in Rostock. In Aachen a referee threatened to abandon a Bundesliga match unless offensive chanting stopped. For many, the real low point came when Germany fans sang discriminatory songs during the Euro 2008 qualifier in Bratislava in October.