‘Show Racism the Red Card’ Webinar
On the 6th of July ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ hosted a webinar on anti-discrimination and anti-racism programmes in football, such as our European awareness-raising campaign and our #DiversityWins educational programme that promotes diversity, respect, and tolerance on and off the pitch.
During the webinar, we saw presentations from professional football clubs from different countries who have participated in our programme such as Pro League Belgium, Club Brugge, Toulouse FC, Inter d’Escaldes, and Nuova Peloro. The EFDN also shared a presentation on how you can use our free resources and become a part of the biggest anti-discrimination campaign in Europe.
The webinar was kicked off by welcoming everyone and introducing what the schedule was. After a brief introduction, a presentation on what the EFDN focuses on how we can use the social power of football to advocate for positive change.
The first speaker we invited was Peter Gheysen who’s the head of the Club Brugge Foundation, which is the CSR department of the Belgian Champions. With the largest fan base in Belgium, they are mainly focusing on becoming the leading club on CSR responsibility giving workshops in schools in order to inspire younger generations to fight against racism and discrimination.
Secondly, we welcomed Jan Cas to the stage who is the Pro League, CSR Manager in Belgium. Jan explained more about how the Belgian Football world is so heavily involved in anti-discrimination campaigns, this was due to a racist incident that took place in December 2020, this incident led to all Belgian clubs standing in solidarity against racism. Jan continued his presentation by going more into depth about what has been done over the few years and what still needs to happen to eradicate racism. One thing is for sure, a united approach is necessary, doing this alone will not be enough.
After these last two presentations, attendees were given a 5-minute break to stretch their legs and go get a drink, before the webinar resumed, we all took a group photo to remember this successful webinar!
After a short break attendees were able to listen to a wonderful presentation given by Marvin Olawaiye who is the CSR Manager at the French club, Toulouse FC. Marvin started off the presentation by giving an insight into the goals and vision of the club and gave an explanation of the different programmes they have such as ‘JCS Against Discriminations’ which is a programme that has been active since 2001.
At the end of the presentation, he gave an overview of what next season’s plan is such as promoting the ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ in schools by using the workbooks and focusing on two factors, fight against racism and the promotion of gender equality.
After Marvin’s interesting presentation we were taken all the way to Andorra to enjoy a presentation from Coke Gonzalez who is the Communications Manager at Club Inter d’Escaldes. During his presentation, he went into the history of the club and where it all started. Throughout the presentation, Coke went into depth on what ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ has done for the club and expressed his gratitude. Are you also interested in joining the campaign, click here to join!
The last presentation we received was given by Lucio Cogode and Marco Quarticcio from the Italian grassroots club A.S.D. Nuova Peloro. Firstly, Lucio who is the Social Section Manager at the club, he is mostly in charge to make sure that the club keeps growing and gaining followers on social media. Secondly, Marco who is the Vice President of Nuova Peloro, was firstly the captain of the team, but focuses nowadays on what is going on off the pitch rather than on. During the presentation, the two emphasized the importance of why the club was created. It was not only created to play and enjoy the beautiful game but also to recover and highlight the value and social importance of the sport.
We would like to thank everyone who took part in the ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ webinar, we fully enjoyed the experience and we hope you did too! We hope to see you all at future events!
