Warsaw (AFP) – In a former working class district of Warsaw fans dressed in black cheer on the women’s team of AKS Zly, a football club set up with unusual ambitions.
Rather than fighting for titles and trophies in a sport troubled too often by homophobia and racism, AKS Zly was founded to promote inclusion and oppose bigotry.
Zly means bad in Polish and the club’s full name translates as the Bad Alternative Sports Club.
Strangely enough, the club whose code of conduct promotes fair play and bans violence manages to hold it’s own in local competition.
There is an air of festivity at the stadium located between a basilica and an old brick industrial mill in the Szmulowizna neighbourhood of the once neglected Praga district.
“Go Bad girls!” yell fans of the club recently handed UEFA Best Grassroots Club award for demonstrating “that boundaries can be broken down thanks to football.”
The opponents are greeted by a welcome chant for AKS Zly’s home games.
“It’s us, AKS the Bad!… We’re Bad fans and we make Bad rhymes! Welcome!”
Hooligan from other teams have at times reacted by hurling insults, threats and sometimes projectiles.
But the AKS Zly women’s captain Eliza Gorska-Tran prefers to overlook the negative.
“We’d really like to infect the others with our exceptional team and stadium atmosphere,” she said.
The club was formed in 2015 by a handful of fans who love football but object to its sometimes racist and homophobic baggage.
“We’re proud of the fact that we have two women on our team who are together and that the captain wears a rainbow armband,” said Przemyslaw Fura, a club member and fan, referring to the symbol of the LGBT community, regularly disparaged by Poland’s powerful Catholic Church and governing conservatives.
Club founder member Krzysztof Gorniak said that in Poland football often rhymes with money while fans face “politics and machismo in the stands.”
“We no longer felt at home at those stadiums” marred by hooligans, racist slogans and homophobes, he told AFP.
– Thug to hero –
What impressed UEFA, European football’s governing body, was the AKS Zly’s inclusivity: anyone can join, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or fitness level.
“AKS Zly runs men’s and women’s teams. It organises free football classes for refugees, and also focuses on the inclusion of disabled players,” UEFA said in a statement in September announcing the award.
from World Soccer Talk https://ift.tt/2oebeqN
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