Polish government panic before Euro 2012

Polish government panic before Euro 2012

Our member "m-a" wrote us this article to explain the situation in Poland and how supporters of Lech Poznan try to handle it.

It all started after the "famous" riots on the Cup Final against Legia Warszawa - on the 3rd of May 2011 (after some time - it seems that these riots were somehow provoked by authorities).

The government, knowing that they did nothing to prepare the country for Euro2012(no promised roads, stations and airports built) , properly declared "war with hooligans", to improve its social position.

As a penalty for the riots in the cup final we got our stadium closed. We protested against it and suporterd our players from outside of stadium during the match against Górnik Zabrze.

In next home match against Ruch Chorzów we showed up wearing black "funeral" colors as a protest against what was happening. The cops (after orders from government) gave supporters heavy fines and stadium bans even for the smallest thing. For this match we ran the support only in last 20 minutes.

Now Polish supporter's society was united and we all protested against the government's actions.

The last match of the season was against Korona Kielce. We prepared T-shirts with the words "It shall have been the second Ireland and it is the second Belarus" (After the match our player Ivan Djurdjevic wore it as well) and we had a pyro-show in the last 20 minutes.

We risked a lot, fortunately no one was arrested.

The pyro was meant to be fired on all  Polish stadiums, however only we did it. That was the first sign for us, that our supporters’ society started to break and divide...

Season 2011-2012:

At the beginning of the current season (2011-2012), to our amazement, all of the other Extraleague firms ran their support like nothing ever happened. In the meantime, the leader of our supporters organization was given a stadium ban after fierce media attack (!).

What is worse is the repressions that is still on going, and they are even stronger than those from last season (The new laws say you can be banned not only for pyro, but also for obeying the security's instructions or for swearing)

We had a meeting and decided that even if we are the only team, we have to keep protesting against this government policy. It was a very hard decision for us, but we decided to show up only on a few games this season (both home and away) and run the support for only last 20 minutes in each martch, to show the difference on games with us and without us.

After last match against Wisla Krakow our capo was arrested and charged for "emptying his seat" and not obeying the security's instructions. He may get up to 1500 euro in fine and 6-year stadium ban!

And because of this, our boycott will for sure continue.

But we will never surrender! First of all (as we were united as all Polish firms) we thought that the lack of support will make the clubs and sponsors to put some pressure on the government and it will cease the oppressions. Now, being alone, we only like to survive with no more bans and not give the cops the easy chance to catch us.

We hope that after Euro 2012 the repressions will stop and we will be able to return and have fun the way we want – our tribunes, our rules! This protest is then obviously not “against the club”, as the media in Poland are trying to say…

Right now, while not giving up so easy, we are collecting signatures for the citizen’s project of new law on mass events, enabling us to fire flares and annulling all of the idiotic bans introduced. We also fight for overthrowing the ruling government and its leader Donald Tusk (the election is in early October). This season we also signed our amateur team (consisting of Lech Poznañ fans) to play in the Polish Cup. They played two rounds (one in Poznañ, one in Ka¼mierz), giving us plenty of joy, as those games were no mass events, so we could fire pyro, sing and have fun like we wanted to.

In end of September we welcomed our Prime Minister Donald Tusk with flares and banners, as he visited Poznan:

The others groups slowly begin to join our protests. Some of the biggest Polish groups from Pogon Szczecin and Górnik Zabrze also suspended their activity at home games.

We  also plan to do a lot patriotic and charity actions as well as some integrative events to still keep together, no matter what.

FOOTBALL IS FOR FANS!