No football for fascists – the DFB scandal and awards

In the autumn of 1991, the annual members’ meeting of FC St. Pauli, in adopting a motion from the Millerntor Roar! editors, passed new stadium regulations. Since then, racist and discriminatory slogans were prohibited at Millerntor.

 

Further milestones followed:

 

– Since 2004, the Fanladen St. Pauli has organised the Antiracist Invitational Tournament (Antira) for international teams.

 

– Since 2010, Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January is remembered with one or several events.

 

– In 2014, the Stiftung Auschwitz-Komitee honoured “Ultrà Sankt Pauli” for the organisation of the antiracist “Alerta”-network with the Hans-Frankenthal-Award.

 

In 2016, the Deutsche Fußball-Bund (German Football Association (DFB)) honoured the Fanladen St. Pauli for its, in cooperation with the FC St. Pauli, “No football for fascists” shirt action with the Julius-Hirsch-Award.

 

The latter award being a positive indicator for a change of thinking within the DFB: because two years ago, when the German national team held training sessions at Millerntor, the DFB still let cover a part of the writing “Kein Fußball den Faschisten” (No football for fascists). This was followed by appalled reactions from fans, the club and media.

 

The next time, when the DFB team trained inside Millerntor, said writing remained uncovered.