The Romanian First Division 2017-2018 football season has barely begun, but the newly promoted team from Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy, Sepsi OSK, already has to endure xenophobic slurs from nationalist supporters of other teams.
On Monday night Sepsi OSK played against Dinamo București in the capital city. The game had not even started, when the supporters of the host team started shouting “Out with the Hungarians from the country!” Sadly, such incidents are not uncommon during sport matches, so much so that the referee did not even think to take any necessary measures against the chanting fans.
Our organisation will address a complaint to the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD), denouncing the behaviour of Dinamo’s supporters, and asking for the football club to be fined, and we will also call upon the Romanian Football Federation to investigate the events and ensure that similar incidents will not happen in the future. We strongly feel that such behaviour should not be tolerated under any circumstances, and certainly not in sports, which is supposed to be based on fair play and tolerance.
Moreover, as we prepare for the centennial, the Hungarian minority is especially susceptible to such discriminatory manifestations in sports. In the coming period the most important expectation towards the majority population is that it to takes into account the promises made to the minorities a hundred years ago, so that the Hungarian community and others can feel as citizens with equal rights.