And you wonder why there is Anti-Polish feeling in the UK

That is correct the English FA need to build support if they wish to host the Euros again that's how the politics of football works remember the English FA have to compete against UEFA policy. The chances of England hosting are close to Zero, they may get a city but they have to work at it. Ask yourself why England never had a championship for decades was it because they "invented" football or was it because of their fans reputation?

I have not said that the Panorama programme was factually inaccurate I said the programme was a piece of propaganda that insinuated something that wasn't true just as Harry insinuated something that wasn't true with his story about the Irish football fan. Both were pieces of propaganda.

Its the easiest thing in the world to point a camera and get the footage you want then make massive assumptions about the country that is what Panorama did.

Sol Campbell was used as a poster boy for that programme because he had been England captain and was Black, he was urging people to avoid the two countries. Now his opinion carries no more weight than any one else because he doesn't have a programme behind him.

Lying again Barney. Or was 1996 decades ago? Remember how England hosted Euro '96?


Oh dear, you wish to call the off the record statement of one of your own ambassadors 'propaganda'. You really do fail to understand what the word means.

The programme suggested people "of colour" would not be safe in either country, black and Asian people (not many) were among the English fans how many were attacked as the programme suggested they would be?

The point of view was that Asian and Black people attending the tournament would not be safe in either country yet that turns out to be wrong

There was no political strategy just a lazy journalist making a very weak biased piece.


30 years between 66 and 96 is 3 decades and 96 is almost 2 decads ago


Oh dear Indeed
You insinuated something that wasnt true when you said

So it was not propaganda and you were simply lying about the British (Broadcasting Corporation), yet again.


A factually accurate piece which is supported by everybody here who has spent time in Poland and been to a game or two here (which you haven't). And a piece supported by events after it.


Your post uses the present tense, not the past. Would you like me to point them out to you?


Really? Did I? Do feel free to point that out.

It was because of their reputation, something we thankfully put behind us decades ago. And something that countries such as Poland and Ukraine need to urgently address in the present century.

Should the English FA have ignored the problem and claimed anyone who mentioned it was somehow 'plotting' against them?

What about Panorama documentaries about hooliganism in England? Were they in league with others in some kind of anti-English plot?


Your logic is somewhat confused here.

'factually inaccurate' means the same as 'not true'.

Either claims made were false or else they weren't.

What do you believe?

And if the programme made false claims, then what were they?


If the people concerned hadn't done what they did then they wouldn't have had the footage.

If I pointed a camera at you, would I get footage of you committing a racial assault.

You are 'shooting the messenger here. Why, because the messenger happens to be from your least favourite country?

Can you tell me what 'assumptions' were made and why they are 'untrue'?

It is not untrue that ethnic minority fans are under threat at football stadiums in Poland, and neither is untrue to state that supporters organisations have been influenced by the far right in Poland.

You can't answer the points above, and you are doing a terrible job of defending the indefensible.

You are defending the point of view of PiS, who are in denial about the influence of the far right.

That's not a particularly nice position to find yourself in, Barney.

[quotation]Sol Campbell was used as a poster boy for that programme because he had been England captain and was Black, he was urging people to avoid the two countries.[/quote]

He was urging ethnic minorities not to go. You yourself said they should be 'extra cautious'. Why go somewhere where you need be 'extra cautious'?

Was he wrong, and if so how?

And what problem do you have with Panorama asking the opinion of a former black England football captain?

Ifor you are not quite as bad

The English made great strides in removing hooliganism from the grounds, that however is a side issue to the programme.
Something doesnt have to be untrue to be propaganda just that the weighting is not balanced and I'm suggesting that the programme was not balanced as evidenced by subsequent events.

I have no problem with Sol Campbell beyond his treachery for Spurs my problem is that the programme gave undue weight to his words.

How is it wrong?

They are 'unsafe'.

Here is a group of Mexicans being attacked on a beach in Gdynia a few weeks ago by football fans, taken not by the BBC, but rather by the Polish police monitoring camera:

Now, would it have been a good idea had those Mexicans watched the Panorama documentary?

I'll take a random video of something unpleasant in an other country and suggest it's typical of that country as a whole, do you think that would be fair?

But it is typical of the behaviour of Polish football ultras.


I neither need nor require your praise.


And did they do this by accepting they had a problem and looking for ways to solve it, or by brushing it under the carpet and claiming anyone who mentioned it was part of some nefarious anti-English plot?

Oh god not another one displaying exactly the same attributes they feel all Polish people have. There has been no evidence produced for these beliefs beyond "a bloke told me" produced here.

[quote=Barney]Oh god not another one displaying exactly the same attributes they feel all Polish people have. There has been no evidence produced for these beliefs beyond "a bloke told me" produced here.

Polish football ultras are not the same as all Polish people.

You seem to be attempting to move the discussion away from the facts, which are that Polish football supporters groups are dominated by right wing thugs, who pose a threat to non-white people visiting Poland.

We have to ask why someone who is supposedly 'anti-racist' is not apparently not concerned by this.

The fact that the programme was made by the BBC, which contains the word 'British', provides us with a helpful clue here.


The evidence was filmed assaults on Asians during a match, Nazi saluting, interviews with fan groups.

As if further evidence were needed, I posted another video.

It is you who has failed to produce evidence for your claims that a programme exposing racism and thuggery was merely part of some nefarious British plot to blacken the name of Poland so England could get the Euros for themselves.

Perhaps Barney would prefer to claim that it was partly that and partly a result of the Anti-Polish feeling in the UK he thinks exists in the UK.

[quote=Harry]Perhaps Barney would prefer to claim that it was partly that and partly a result of the Anti-Polish feeling in the UK he thinks exists in the UK

I think you are personalising the discussion here.

(As Barney did bringing up irrelevancies from previous discussions).

However, I believe it valid to ask Barney why he supports the theory of mysterious British plots.

It's hard to believe he'd have a similar theory about broadcasting organisations from nations other than Britain.

I said that the programme was biased and hence a propaganda piece (which I believe it was), the comment about needing to secure support for any English FA bid for football tournaments was an aside as I made clear.

The rest you made up in your mind.

Using some ugly scenes at a match and the existence of Ultras to warn people ahead of a major tournament was the very definition of sensationalist. I pointed out that the programme suggested black and Asian football fans would be attacked, that didn't happen so it looks like the programme was indeed sensationalist.

You don't think the program was biased, I didn't therefore suggest you were a British nationalist "my country right or wrong" type yet you felt free to suggest my differing opinion made me anti British. I said that the reaction you had was similar to the reaction you accuse Polish people of having.

If you have a problem with anyone commenting on a programme by any British broadcaster or voicing an opinion different to yours you have a major issues. The irony is that that is the attitude you accuse Polish people of having

It was an accurate reflection of football out here, as you'd know if you'd ever been to a game here.


Do you deny that there were numerous racist attacks on fans in Poland during UEFA 2012? Those of us who were actually here at the time would beg to differ. But then what would be know? We only live here and see the problems of football hooliganism and racism in Poland regularly. You, on the other hand, live in Ireland and know what a bloke in the pub told you: clearly you are far better informed than us.

Propaganda does not have to be biased and/or misleading - that's for definition.

And the point of view was the one of the BBC journalist making a programme with one theme: Stadiums of Hate

Yes, it does. That's part of the definition of 'propaganda', which is a pejorative word.


But have produced no evidence whatsoever to back up your claim.


Evidence?


It wasn't an 'aside'. This is the assumption on which you base your accusation of 'bias'.


What exactly did I 'make up'?


What exactly do you expect a programme on football hooliganism to show? Herds of wildebeast in the Serengeti?


Few black or Asian fans went (thankfully) so this is hardly any great surprise. The video I posted gives us a good reason why.


It is your unquestioning acceptance of a half-baked conspiracy theory involving Britain that is wholly unsupported by any evidence that leads me to suspect possible anglophobic bias.


If you can provide evidence then I'll consider it. .


Either you can support a viewpoint with facts, or you cannot. You have completely failed to show any factual inaccuracies in the programme.

I am not dismissing that programme, since, as I have mentioned already - I haven't even seen it and I didn't write anything about "propaganda". I'm writing about a more general problem and I used what Sol Cambell said to illustrate it. I don't know if that programme was sensationalist and unbalanced, but judging by the fact that they thought it's OK to include such a statement as Sol Campbell's, I suspect it could be.


Nope. God, I sometimes wish you could see me discussing with Poles and Russians, maybe then we could avoid such accusations directed at me...


Not nice, ifor, that's low, why are you being offensive now? I wasn't offensive towards you.
It's funny, some time ago, but I guess not long enough for you to forget it, you wrote how you like my posts. But that was when I was criticizing delph. Now I'm criticizing something about your media and you're becoming aggressive. Interesting how human nature works, isn't :)

So, please, explain to me, why do you think I have reading comprehension problems ?
I wrote "I don't understand", because I think you haven't understood what we were writing about and your comment about the British not going to Poland for economic reasons was unrelated, as I already have shown to you.


Of course.
But I also can see how, let's say, "monotematic" your tabloids are, as far as Poles are concerned.
Tell me, do your media report about such stuff like I mentioned? You know, destroying someone's door because she's Polish, attacking a Polish shop, etc.?


No, they didn't come only to the match, they also organised a march celebrating a national holiday and that was after Russian fans beat up a steward in Wrocław and it was shown all over the news.

And may I add that the man who organised it, the leader of some national Russian supporters' association is a neo-Nazi? lol Of corse, our media didn't fail to mention that which made things even worse.

I think they made a mistake to allow this march in the first place.
Yes, that was a mistake.
But I don't think allowing Poland and Ukraine to host Euro 2012 was a mistake (Sol Cambell).
I don't think it was OK to say that we are unworthy of hosting such tournaments (Sol Cambell).
I don't think that families should stay out of Poland and Ukraine, because if they don't they'll "come back in a coffin" (Sol Cambell).

I don't think we didn't "deserve" this prestigious tournament in our countries (Sol Cambell).


Were there, Harry? Have you witnessed them?
Because I've seen on Youtube clashes of football fans of various nationalities in Poland. And I remember reports about such clashes from other Euros hosted in the West too.

What about Ukraine?

Tell me, Harry - do you think UEFA made a mistake by allowing Poland to host the Euro 2012?
Were we unworthy of hosting that tournament?

Did they schedule the match for that day? No. Could they have moved it to another day? No. Could the Polish authorities? Yes.
They organised a march? That is what the Polish police wanted them to do: they were much easier to protect when in a single group. When they split into smaller groups after the match they were not protected and we saw what happened then.


So now you're justifying and excusing racist attacks, nice work.


Yes I was in Warsaw and yes I saw Russian fans getting chased down streets after the match by Polish thugs and worse.


No, but Poland certainly didn't do itself any favours when it came to the problems it has with racist thugs and football. If the draw hadn't been fixed in the way it was, Poland could easily have had major problems.

My claim is that the programme makers found evidence of severe problems at these football stadia and ascribed the problems to Poland and Ukraine as a whole and used Sol Campbell to warn visitors to stay away. I have been very clear on this all afternoon.

The comments about the English FA were clearly an aside when I described them as a suggestion.

You made the anti British stuff up nothing I typed could have led you to that conclusion. You have a history of abusing Irish posters and clearly don't like the British media being criticised. Is it that difficult to believe for one second that someone else may have a different opinion?

The attitude displayed is indeed exactly the same as the attitude ascribed to Polish people here by several prolific posters.

I have clearly demonstrated the sensationalist nature of the broadcast, they suggested one thing and another thing happened.

They asked Sol Campbell to comment on the programme, and broadcast his reaction. You may not like what he said, but why should you have a problem with this? That was his personal opinion, and not necessarily that of the BBC.

And, tbh, what was wrong with his opinion? If you are black and go to football stadiums in Poland, there is a reasonable likelihood of your being attacked. You're pretty unlikely to be killed, but this might happen.

I'd still say that you are (generally) a reasonable poster. I honestly don't think what I wrote is that difficult to understand, but if you can't understand it, then that's just too bad. I could explain exactly what I meant but I think it would be rather tedious and time-consuming, so it's better just to leave it.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm getting the impression you are just seeing what you want to see, rather than the wider picture. There may be some unpleasant/unfair articles, but I doubt whether even the tabloids are 'monotematyczny' on Polish immigration. They tend to be more focussed on the breasts of film stars and footballers' sexual activities than the 'evil' deeds of Poles.

I imagine probably they would report it. By the way, just because you've seen something in 'niezależna.pl', it isn't necessarily true.

Yes, you're right: almost all the racist attacks in Poland were carried out on white fans than on black or Asian fans. Clearly the program makers got it completely wrong.

Who should they have ascribed these problems to, Then? France? Germany? Luxembourg?


How is asking him to comment 'using' him? How could they have predicted what he would say?


They were central to a thesis you have no evidence for.


Why bring nonsense of a personal nature into all this? I have a problem with a certain poster, or rather he has a problem with me. But this has nothing to do with what is being discussed here.


Without evidence of their having stated anything unfair, inaccurate or untrue.


I have already stated you are entitled to your opinion, as I am, as is Sol Campbell. Mine is an informed opinion, however, yours is not, and you are totally unable to back up your opinion with evidence.


Or claim to have done.

But find yourself unable to support your claim with evidence.

Ifor

The racist attributes clearly belong to the racists not Polish and Ukranian people at large.
Sol Campbell was given star billing as pointed out before his opinion was broadcast by the BBC giving it additional weight. As the broadcast clearly went through an editorial process someone decided to include both of these things that makes the programme biased because the first is untrue and the second is an opinion without a counter opinion.

I'm beginning to think that you may need a bit of help in understanding basic concepts.....The broadcast said one thing and a different thing happened, is that not evidence of lazy sensationalism?

I don't understand - what could Polish authorities do? Move the march to another day?


No, Harry, that march was seen as provocation by those idiots, I've seen their comments on the internet about the march. It was a bad idea. Some Russians claimed they will bring Soviet Union flags (to spite our law against communist symbols) to the march and our media of course reported it, because why not, it's just "news". I've been reading both Polish and Russian internet at that time so I had some insight into that mess.


No, I'm not, you liar. Don't pretend you're stupid, Harry, I have enough of this, seriously.
One of the Russians I know and really like and respect joined the march for a while and took pictures.
I'm just saying it was obvious that the march was a bad idea.


Russians aren't a different race, Harry o_O Those weren't "racist" attacks.
You wrote "racist attacks".
What racist attacks you had in mind?


So are you saying Sol Cambell was wrong to say such things?

That's not a race issue, that's a deep long-term historical problem and the Smoleńsk tragedy made it worse. It wouldn't be resolved or not resolved by UEFA giving or not giving Poland the Euro.

Actually, what happened during Euro 2012 towards Russian fans made people realise there's some kind of problem in our attitude towards Russians. And I think some people in the media may have realised that they're doing their part in it, because some media were criticized for heating up the atmosphere before the match. I have an impression that there's some improvement in our media nowadays.

That doesn't mean I think it was good that Russian fans were beat up, I hope you understand o_O

LOL
You know, I remember such funny moment in reporting of the BBC during the Euro 2012 too.
There was this BBC reporter in Warsaw, talking in a very sensationalist, agitated tone (with Polish policemen in the backround preparing for the Russian march, I think). He was telling how scary it is, that Warsaw looks like a war zone now, with all that police everyhere, etc. etc. (There were some families with children walking behind him and some Russian fans with flags, it looked pretty funny).

When he was saying about this "war zone" I've remembered there was no single BBC reporter in the area where the London riots were taking place, because it was "too dangerous" xD I remember their helicopter flying above the area to show what's going on lol


Because it made the programme sensationalist (is that music in the backround from the original programme, btw? lol).


Everything was wrong with his opinion, ifor...
Euro is not some league match where only some die hard fans come. Plenty of normal people went to those matches, there were huge masses of people, women, families with children in fan zones. And Sol Cambell said that families should stay out because they may come back in a coffin. You really don't see anything wrong in what he said?

I understood everything perfectly. I explained why I wrote that "I don't understand". Your comment was unrelated. You think it was related? Then please explain.


No, ifor, I just see what there is. I'm not making up articles in the British press, after all lol And I stumble into those articles only because I read this forum.

I'm not asking you about your imagination. I'm asking if such incidents are reported in your media.


What are you talking about? I don't read any "niezależna.pl".

They could certainly have asked UEFA to reschedule the match. They chose not to.


There is no such law, please stick to facts.


So when a Pole in the UK gets beaten up for being Polish, he isn't a victim of racism? And when anybody anywhere does anything bad to a Polish person because that person is Polish, they are not racist? Think carefully, I'll hold you to your answer.


Yes, I saw some them being chased and assaulted by racist Polish thugs. But do feel free to keep justifying those attacks.

How do you know they could? Maybe it was too late already? Besides, it's easier to cancel some march (football fans usually don't organise patriotic marches during football tournaments, I think they could do without it) than reschedule a Euro match, don't you think o_O


Really? Then tell this to those Russians lol
(And, yeah, I think there's such law, or the Russian nationalists and stalinists wouldn't be ranting about it?)


No, he is a victim of xenophobia.


No, they're xenophobic.
Those are basic terms, Harry. I've noticed Americans mixing those two up, but you?


lol
;)


Those weren't racist attacks though. Then I guess BBC programme should be warning Russians to stay out from Poland, not people of different races, yes? lol

When a Pole in the UK gets beaten up for being Polish he is a victim of the locals and when anybody anywhere does anything bad to a Polish person because that person is Polish then one who's done this may be called a thug, a hooligan, a bad guy, a brute, a criminal, a crook, a cutthroat, an evildoer, a hoodlum, a monster, an ogre, a ruffian, a scoundrel, a terrorist, a thief, a vandal - a wrongdoer of a kind, anything but a racist. It seems to me such a strange concept that racism and seeing it as a reason for beating someone even stranger.

It requires your explanation.

Sol Campbell has a right to an opinion, and the BBC have a right to broadcast this opinion.

Whether I personally think he happens to be right or wrong is an irrelevance.

Should he have been censored?


And I don't think you did, but would rather discuss something else now.


Exactly. Everyday tens of thousands of articles appear in the British press. The ones that turn up here are only a minute percentage of these articles. To understand what British people really believe, you would have to widen your reading substantially.

You have a problem with pragmatics. How would I know what attacks don't get reported?

But I don't imagine (but of course don't know) that newspapers would generally refuse to print stories about violence towards Poles.


Fair enough. But when somone wants to inform me of attacks on Poles in the UK, niezależna.pl is most often the source. And this is not a source I would trust.

Yeah, OK, I guess they had outdated info lol

In 2011 Constitutional Tribunal, after SLD complained about the law, decided that Nazi and communist symbols are allowed "w ramach działalności artystycznej, edukacyjnej, kolekcjonerskiej lub naukowej" ("for artistic, educational, collecting and scientific purposes").

I don't know if parading with Soviet flags would be considered "glorifying" the regime, but Minister of Sport and Tourism explained a couple of days before the Euro that Russians won't be punished for wearing T-shirts with communist symbols:


And make the programme sensationalist - of course they have the right to do so. I just had a better opinion of the BBC, to be honest :)


No to me. What do you think - was he right or wrong to say such things?


Censored? I remember some Polish Jewish activist or a leader of some Jewish association in Poland complaining that they left out his comment or cut it or sth and he said the programme was unbalanced, etc. Was he censored?

As for Sol Cambell's opinion - why was he asked about it? Was he ever in Poland?
Where there any black football players playing in Poland aksed about this issue?
I remember a black basketball player criticizing Sol Cambell for what he said - I think I even posted a link to a film on youtube on this forum.


And I'd rather we finish this. So, please, explain.


I don't stop only on those that show up here. I do some further clicking too.


I'm asking if they do get reported.
How? Google - that's BBC:


I don't read such portals, my source was Lenka and goofy.