Amsterdam mayor accused of "moral preaching" in spat with UEFA over banning Lazio fans
Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema’s decision to ban Lazio fans from a match against Ajax at the end of last year resulted in quite the spat with UEFA. The European football association accused Halsema of “moral preaching,” while the Amsterdam mayor accused UEFA of not taking its own anti-racism campaign seriously, Parool reports after gaining access to the correspondence.
On November 26, Halsema announced that the city decided not to allow S.S. Lazio fans to attend the match against Ajax in the Johan Cruijff ArenA on December 12. She cited unrest in the city around a recent Ajax vs Maccabi Tel Aviv match, the police being worried about racist and anti-Semitic statements from Lazio supporters, and the fact that UEFA had designated the match as a high-risk match.
The reference to UEFA in the decision did not go down well with the European Football Association. In a letter dated 28 November, UEFA noted that Halsema never directly consulted it about the decision.
The football association called Halsema’s decision “disappointing,” especially since Lazio supporters had already bought around 3,000 tickets and made flight and hotel reservations. “While we appreciate the unrest which has recently befallen the city of Amsterdam, we must question the grounds on which such a draconian measure has been taken at such a late stage,” UEFA Deputy Secretary General Giorgio Marchetti wrote.
Marchetti said the decision was “based mainly on generalizations about the visiting club rather than on risk analysis based on intelligence.” UEFA also said that its “high risk” qualification of the match is merely “standard practice” intended to take extra safety measures. “That does not automatically mean that there are risks associated with a specific group of supporters.”
Halsema responded on December 4. She stressed that the Amsterdam authorities took the measure based on current police information and European experiences with some Lazio supporters. “The extreme right-wing signature of some Lazio supporters and their anti-Semitic and discriminatory statements in Europe in recent years are well known,” she wrote.
She also expressed surprise that UEFA tried to trivialize its high-risk qualification of the match. “You thereby fail to demonstrate that you are aware of the seriousness and (safety-) effects of the right-wing extremist and racist expressions and behavior of a part of the Lazio supporters,” the Amsterdam mayor wrote, accusing UEFA of not taking its own anti-racism campaigns seriously.
“We cannot reconcile this with your own ‘Say no to racism’ campaign,” she said. “If UEFA says that football is more than a game, and that it can be a force of good, then that also entails a social responsibility.”
UEFA responded on December 10, saying that Halsema “misinterpreted” what it meant and that the conclusions she drew in her letter “seriously damaged UEFA’s reputation.” Marchetti called Halsema’s accusations “moral preaching,” saying that she completely disregards UEFA’s commitment to combating racism. He then listed travel bans and stadium closures the association had imposed in recent years.
Halsema responded the next day, again expressing her disappointment about the lack of support from the European football association. “We had hoped and expected that you, as UEFA, would be on our side in this complicated consideration and the necessary decision that we ultimately had to take as a local authority in the context of public order and safety,” she wrote.
The Amsterdam mayor said she would reflect on how she handled the situation and have the decision to ban Lazio fans evaluated in consultation with the mayors of other host cities, the Dutch football association KNVB, and the Ministry of Justice and Security. “We are always open to looking back together on the course of events.”
A spokesperson for Halsema told Parool that UEFA sent no further correspondence on the matter.
