New Sentry Sport video to raise awareness on UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

The Sentry Sport project says no to all forms of discrimination in sport and joins those who today 21 March celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination promoted by the United Nations with a video calling everyone to stand up for the victims of exclusion in our sports clubs: don’t close your eyes, say no to racism.

The full video will be online next week, this trailer invites reflection on this special day.

This particular day has been chosen to remember what the police did in 1969 in Sharpeville, South Africa, when started shooting on a peaceful demonstration against the apartheid “pass laws” killing 69 people. In many countries regimes of discrimination and apartheid have prevented people of different skin colour from participating in public life and exercising their rights. And even today, we witness more or less explicit racism and discrimination, where the human and civil rights of many individuals and groups are constantly put at risk by xenophobic behaviour and stereotypes. Unfortunately, even the world of sport at all levels is not immune to these attitudes, as demonstrated by the many projects carried out at national and European level by many sports organisations.

Although there is no European Observatory on Discrimination in Sport, data from the Italian one and from some specific observatories carried out especially by football federations show that there is an increase in verbal aggression against black people and the LGBTQI+ community. Episodes occurring at all levels, not only in the stands of football matches (often the only ones monitored by the mainstream media).

To compensate the lack of information, to better understand the phenomenon and to elaborate possible strategies for action and contrast, the Sentry Sport project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission and coordinated by UISP, was born in 2021. The project developed a series of useful materials for the creation of monitoring projects, education and training programmes addressed to sports managers, coaches and referees, and a series of tips for stakeholders and policy makers who would like to tackle the issue. Last but not least, a video has been developed, which will be online next week and tells three emblematic stories of people who had to give up their favourite sport because they were victims of stereotypes and prejudices.

The project is carried out by a consortium of NGOs, sports associations and international networks that in various ways work to combat all forms of discrimination in our societies and in sport: VIDC (Austria), International Sport and Culture Association - ISCA (Denmark) European Forum for Urban Security – EFUS (France), Koinsep En Drasei (Greece), Red Deporte y Cooperación (Spain).

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