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Football Supporters Europe attended European Conference on Ultras in Vienna

Posted 19/2/10

On the 17th and 18th of February, the FSE Committee, along with Ultra representatives, took part in the conference on Ultras in Vienna. The conference was hosted by the Council of Europe and the Federal Ministry of Interior of Austria, with the support of UEFA.

The agenda of the conference was stated to discuss good practices on dealing with new developments in supporters’ behavior. Besides the fans’ delegation, the conference had participants from Austrian Authorities, representatives from the Council of Europe, EU Think Tank, UEFA, FIFA and various national representatives along with police officers from different countries, Government representatives and officials from the Ministry of Interior and others.

It all started out with introductions from various studies and practices followed by a press conference stating the purpose of the Conference and some briefings on the topics that were to be discussed.

In the following part, there were three workshops with fruitful discussions on the topics of “Ultras and safety”, “Ultras and Police” and “Supporters Involvement”. The discussions took place with the approach of equal footing of the different groups represented, and also good practice examples. The discussions led to various action points for the further work to develop from the conference, such as the importance of involving the fans in decision making processes on a European level.

FSE considers this a first step in the good direction towards supporters’ involvement. Now we are exploring how the dialogue develops. A good signal from the authorities would be the further development of our suggestion to study the legalisation of the use of pyrotechnics in stadia under certain conditions, since it is an important part of fan culture in many countries.

Further info:
Football Supporters Europe (FSE) is an independent, representative European network of football fans with its Coordinating Office located in Hamburg/Germany and members in 29 countries across Europe representing more than 2 million football fans in total. The Council of Europe published on their website an interview with Daniela Wurbs, CEO of Football Supporters Europe.

Also, find here further info on a very interesting new fans' initiative in Austria, called Pyrotechnik ist kein Verbrechen (Pyrotechniques are not a crime!)