“Out with the Hungarians from the country” – was shouted out loud at a stadium in Bucharest, where two Romanian teams were playing in Liga II (the second tier league of the Romanian football league system). Needless to say, one of the teams was Sepsi OSK – Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy from Szeklerland, a team with a strong Hungarian background.
It is a fact that sports events in Romania represent more than mere games and the anti-Hungarian discourse has yet again been displayed by the Romanian supporters from Bucharest. The game was not lacking in hateful attitude against the Hungarians. Moreover, in the 70th minute a fire-cracker exploded near the OSK players and supporters.
In recent years, the articles of several newspapers, including Gazeta Sporturilor have dealt in length with how the supporters of Szeklerland’s hockey-, basketball-, football- and handball teams sing the Szekler hymn before the various games and display the Szekler flag. There have been numerous cases where the journalists instigated the referees to give negative statements on these actions, further provoking the readers of the newspapers. Huge media campaigns have been conducted with the sole purpose of instigating hate towards Hungarians, thus appealing to the dormant nationalist sentiment of the readers.
This recent event in Bucharest is just one in a long line of threatening and verbally violent discourses. Making everything worse is the fact that the Romanian legislation is rather permissive when it comes to sanctioning the persons responsible for these actions, allowing for only a small monetary fine, an amount that is not enough to deter such behaviour. What is worse, among the protagonists of the recent incidents were small children, proving that the Romanian educational system is facing serious challenges, since it fails to educate the young generations about the importance of tolerance and how to peacefully coexist with other ethnicities.
The fact that the anti-Hungarian discourse in sports is growing and becoming ever more alarming is undeniable, a further proof of the fact that the state not only turns a blind eye on hate speech and discrimination against minorities, but also encourages it.