FC Copenhagen ban foreigners

[-V-]

The Danish champions have caused a storm by attempting to stop non-Danish supporters from buying home tickets for the clashes with Galatasaray, Real Madrid and Juventus

FC Copenhagen have rejected claims of discrimination after the club banned home fans with foreign-sounding names from attending their upcoming Champions League group games.

The Danish champions were drawn in Group B alongside Real Madrid, Juventus and Galatasaray, but sent out an email on Friday informing supporters with non-Danish surnames that their tickets were being cancelled for “security reasons”.

The news has caused uproar among many fans, but Copenhagen club secretary Daniel Rommedahl insists that it was necessary in order to avoid crowd trouble and the move is by no means discriminatory.

In 2000, there were serious disturbances in the centre of Copenhagen ahead of Galatasaray's Uefa Cup final against Arsenal.

“We were fully aware that our decision would cause a reaction, but it was the best solution”, said Rommedahl.

"We are fully aware that everyone will not agree, but discrimination it is not."

This reasoning has not gone down well with supporters, though.

Atila Momeni, a 24-year-old of Iranian ancestry who was born and raised in Copenhagen and regularly attends the club’s games, told Goal: “After buying tickets for all three group games, with money taken out of my bank account, I received an email telling me that for security reasons my purchase had been cancelled.

“I then discovered that many others – none of Danish descent - had experienced the same. A wish for greater security is understandable, but it is unacceptable and discriminatory that the only fans to receive this treatment were those with foreign names.

“The least that could have been done was to offer us some other tickets, but this has not been done. We feel incredibly discriminated. We often suffer racism in Denmark but I would never have thought that we would be treated this way when it came to football. This cannot be excused.

"Uefa must do something about this.”

Jens Bertel Rasmussen, a Danish sports lawyer, has criticised Copenhagen’s decision, saying: "One must not discriminate on the basis of name, sex, age or nationality. If you deny people to go to a game, though it is a private event, there must be a concrete suspicion."

Former FC Nordsjaelland player Bajram Fetai joined a chorus of criticism on social media, tweeting Uefa’s official account: “What do you think about a club not allowing a person with a non-Danish name to buy a ticket for a CL game?”

FC Copenhagen were unavailable to comment on Saturday morning.

goal.com

[Neil Young]

"Discrimination it is not."

It clearly is.

[Arn]

Throw them out, FCK that is.

This is far worse than what Fenerbahce did.

[Muddled]

Those damn pesky OOT'ers.

[Darkon]

Bit selectively written that, it's a **** move but it doesn't tell the entire story. They made the decision because they suspected a lot of opposition fans were buying tickets in the home fan section, and considering the fair share of idiotic semi-violent fans they have they wanted to stop the potential clashes on the stadium.

What the article doesn't say is that FCK, cancelled the tickets based on names, but anyone that have a cancelled ticket can phone in to get it back (not sure how that works), by stating they are home team fan.

But good press it's not, and to do a bit much out of small potential problem it defo is. I mean how big a problem is it for any other club that havn't got a full season card holders filled stadium? I've certainly never heard of it...

[Neil Young]

We get why they did it. But it's still discriminatory because it's based on the idea that Danish people have traditional Danish names. And also that people with traditional Danish names must all support the home team (which may be more likely I suppose but still not necessarily universal).

Apply it to their first team squad - how many would have their tickets cancelled?

[Exiled_red]

Surely a much easier and more sensible way of achieving their aims is to do a fan card system where people can only buy tickets for their big European games if they have attended some many other matches.

[Philip FC Kopenhagen]

On behalf of Copenhagen I would like to say something about this topic.
FC Copenhagen had an incident a couple of years ago against Hannover in Parken, Copenhagen, and then FC Copenhagen didn't do anything when they saw that many people with German names had bought tickets to neutral sections and home sections and that resulted in flares being thrown from upper deck down to the field when Hannover scored the two goals they did. UEFA fined Copenhagen £15.000-20.000. They stated that they found the security unacceptable. Therefore FC Copenhagen stated a couple of weeks ago that FC Copenhagen fans would be allowed on all sections expect the away section for the upcoming group stage in Champions League but a large number of away supporters would not be allowed into the stadium on neutral sections due to security reasons. They also advised the fans to buy the tickets before the opponents were known. Right after the draw there was a massive interest in the tickets especially from Danish citizens with Turkish names, and FC Copenhagen wanted proof that they were fans of Copenhagen and not Galatasaray, Juve, Real Madrid or CR7.

I, as a FC Copenhagen fan, find this episode extremely unfortunate. This could have been avoided. Many Turkish-Danes have been approved and have received their tickets because they confirmed that they were fans of FC Copenhagen. FC Copenhagen is not a racist club and neither are the fans. They also said that Danish fans with Real jerseys on would not be allowed into the stadium as well but it was just the easiest way to do something before the games.

It is sad that measures like this are necessary but the incident in the 2000 UEFA Cup Final in Copenhagen and the incident against Hannover 96 in 2011 in Europa League Group Stage.

Come on Liverpool. Beat that filthy club.

[Neil Young]

Thanks for posting that.

Sure, no one would deny they need to find a system to keep fans segregated. The trouble is that discriminating according to surname is inherently racist or, if you prefer, unacceptably ethnocentric.

That doesn't mean FC København is racist, has any intent to be racist and in any way tolerates or condones racism (unlike some other clubs, in Italy or Eastern Europe for instance). It's a very unfortunate decision though to do it this way and frankly, shows little forethought or awareness.

English clubs manage to keep fans segregated on a weekly basis without using surnames to filter home from away fans (which obviously wouldn't work anyway).

Just find a better system.

[Darkon]

I think the major difference between English clubs and a Danish club, even of FC Copenhagens size, is that 1) English clubs continously sell out and have fan waiting lists for tickets, and 2) that it's rarely you will find someone a bigger fan of the visiting team than the home team with few chances to watch them.

This basically meaning that after the first 10-15k tickets sold, you still half the same amount of tickets in the home section going to first buyer and not people listed on fan cards or whatever as they simply don't exist. FCK have an average attendance of about 1/3 of the stadium, and it simply leaves potential for huge problems as seen before.

Add to that the eagerness of fans that's main team is one of the mentioned above, and you really have potential for problems - sadly. It's a bit like my main team being LFC I guess, and it's quite common for Danish footy fans to have their major team in another league.

Anywho, it's an idiotic way of doing it, discriminating people on the basis of names - and let's face it; it's likely to be targeted at Galatasaray more than anything else. Not sure how to solve it, but there must be a better way than this approach.

[Neil Young]