The initiative is from the non-governmental organization Plano I, from Porto, but with “strong intervention in the municipality of Matosinhos” in partnership with the local authority, which this year applied for a financing line from the international network ‘Fare Network’ up to a maximum of “one thousand euros”, the vice-president of that institution told Lusa.
Paula Allen said that the organization invited “all the clubs in the I and II football league to be partners in this project” and only Benfica joined, through its foundation “, signing a protocol with Plano I.
At this time, Fundação Benfica is one of the 12 institutions that joined this new project and Leixões, of the II League, could be one of the next. The CAIS Association, the Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth, the Authority for the Prevention and Combat of Violence in Sport and the Commission for Equality and Against Racial Discrimination are also among the partners
Plano I’s digital platform “will be launched on March 21, 2021”, International Day for the Fight Against Racial Discrimination, and explained that this project ‘Black Lives Matter’ is about football because thus imposes the ‘Fare Network’.
This network was created in 1999, in Vienna, Austria, to combat discrimination in European football and, for Paula Allen, “it was essential that in Portugal there was also a ‘Fare Network’ project”.
Plano I, however, has no intervention in football, being an organization with “specific work in areas of vulnerable relationships such as dating violence in the university context or domestic violence with LGBTI people,” noted Paula Allen.
The ‘Black Lives Matter in Football’ aims to fight against violence in sport and racism, “ensuring that positive and constructive stories of inclusion and non-discrimination of people in football in Portugal will be valued”.
On the website that it will create until March 21, 2021, Plano I says that “podcasts and videos with national football figures can be found, as well as sports photographs and journalistic clippings that show the racialized people who made history in Portugal in club leadership positions or as coaches and / or players “.
This “website” will be the mainstay of the project, which also provides for “a register of informal complaints and requests for help”, as well as the collection of data that allow, through its analysis, the publication of a “study on discrimination” of racialized people in football in Portugal “.
Paula Allen said that only the digital platform, which will be a specific ‘website’, will absorb “950 euros” and said that “everything else will be voluntary work”.
The Secretary of State for Citizenship and Equality, Rosa Monteiro, was present at the launch of ‘Black Lives Matter in Football’ and hailed football for being “bearer of such noble values” with those behind that project, showing herself available to help “make a difference” through positive practices.
In a videoconference intervention, the Secretary of State for Youth and Sports, João Paulo Rebelo, underlined that “the eradication of racism in sport is the ultimate goal” and maintained that it is necessary “to do everything to combat” this problem.
João Paulo Rebelo also greeted the clubs that, within the scope of the ceremony, received the banner of ethics for their contribution to the fight against violence in sport.
