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As UEFA announced last week, Warsaw-based ASK Zly recently won the UEFA Best Grass Roots Club Award for 2019. The football club is a member of SD Europe and prides itself on being the first democratically ran, fan-owned football club in Poland. More than 1,000 people of Warsaw celebrated this success in last Sunday’s double match and SD Europe was there to share these moments of happiness with the contributors of this award. SD Europe headed to Warsaw this weekend to unearth

Last week, SD Europe met with UEFA in Nyon as part of the ongoing dialogue between the two sides. The event was attended by senior representatives from UEFA, led by First Vice President Karl-Erik Nilsson, Vice President Michele Uva and General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis and by the three European supporters organisations SD Europe, Football Supporters Europe (FSE) and Centre for Access to Football in Europe (CAFE). All three supporters’ groups shared concerns and views on

Earlier this week UEFA published its 2016/17 FSR report, which alongside the fantastic work of fellow FSR partners also contains a review of SD Europe‘s activities last season. In addition, the report contains an overview of the entire five-year funding cycle and shows that it has been an incredibly busy few years for the organisation. Some highlights from the past five seasons include: ‘Heart of the Game’ position paper launched at the European Parliament, Brussels (2012) Ma

“Inspiring, a priceless experience, lasting cooperation” These are just some of the words used to describe SD Europe’s Clubs and Supporters for Better Governance in Football (CSBGiF) project, as it formally came to end earlier this week with the submission of a final report to the European Commission. Bringing together member-run football clubs and national supporters organisation in a unique collaborative partnership for the first time, an independent evaluation of the work

SD Europe is delighted to announce that preparations for our new Erasmus+ project have kicked off and will bring together supporters, football associations, leagues and other stakeholders for the first time in Prague next month. LIAISE stands for Liaison-based Integrated Approach to Improving Supporter Engagement and will further improve the positive impact of supporter liaison officers (SLOs) in partner countries and beyond. Football associations and leagues will work alongs

SD Europe joined forces with Uefa recently to stage the second pan-European workshop for SLO coordinators working at national associations and leagues. Main image credit: Uefa / GEPA pictures & Philipp Brem The event took place in Vienna on 29/30 November with the support of the Austrian Bundesliga and was attended by representatives of football governing bodies from across the continent as well as other key stakeholders such as the Council of Europe. Supporter liaison office

The Association of Bulgarian Fan Clubs of Foreign Teams in Bulgaria has held a football tournament in Sofia to support local deaf and hard of hearing children and their parents. The event – the eighth tournament hosted by the Association – was held in partnership with the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) as well as Sport Sofia 2000 EAD, Sofia Municipality, VTA Security Service and the Comet Children’s Football Academy. It received organisational and financial support from the B

Ten years ago, back in 2007, SD Europe set out on a journey around the continent to bring together supporters interested in fighting for a common cause. In response to financial struggles at clubs at all levels of the game, supporters were determined to become involved in decision-making processes and to be recognised as important stakeholders within football. By then, like-minded supporter organisations had already formed at national and local level – from Brian Lomax’s Nort

SD Europe were very proud to deliver two presentations at this year’s UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play workshop, which took place in Montenegro on 11-13 October. Hosted by the Football Association of Montenegro (FSGC), the workshop was attended by representatives from UEFA, its 55 member associations, and guests from FIFA and the AFC, CAF, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL confederations. Under Article 35 of UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations, clubs appl

In early September SD Europe attended the UEFA-EU Stadium and Security Conference in Munich at the invitation of UEFA. The event takes place at the start of each new club competition season and brings together national association security officers, stadium safety managers, club safety officers and police representatives from all European clubs that have qualified for the next season of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The UEFA/EU security conference offers s

The SLO requirement enters its sixth season, as SD Europe celebrates its tenth anniversary celebrated its first AGM with representatives from 15 different countries. In the ten years of SD Europe’s existence, structured dialogue has been a core part of the organisation, materialising in the introduction of the Supporter Liaison Officer requirement in the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations (Article 35) in 2012/13. It has been a busy five years for the SLO

On May 24th, this year’s Europa League final was played in Stockholm between AFC Ajax and Manchester United. In total six SLOs from the three Stockholm clubs (AIK, Djurgården and Hammarby) were on duty in order to advise colleagues from the two finalists as well as visiting fans. The focus for the SLO support team was on service, logistics and providing local knowledge. “This was the first time a team of local SLOs was deployed at a major European final. It is to be hoped tha

The home of one of the biggest members-run clubs in the Bundesliga, FC Schalke 04, hosted our ‘Clubs and Supporters for Better Governance in Football’ project’s third workshop recently (June 16 – 18). Participants from 18 different countries and 38 organisations were present in Gelsenkirchen, and heard a variety of presentations, discussions and contributions from across Europe, the US and Africa. The feedback from everyone in attendance was extremely positive, and the key le

Uefa President Aleksander Čeferin reiterated the importance of supporters to the beautiful game, following a meeting with representative organisations in Nyon, Switzerland on April 24th. Main image courtesy of Uefa The meeting represented the first time Mr. Čeferin had met with supporters’ organisations since his election as President of European football’s governing body, and members of the SD Europe team were encouraged by his words of welcome. Two members of the Uefa execu

Good financial practices are at the heart of every sustainable business and football clubs are no different as the partners involved in the Clubs and Supporters for Better Governance in Football project heard, dissected and discussed last weekend. Having enjoyed an extremely informative three days that focused on good governance earlier this year in Manchester, 11 project partners and invited guests from across Europe gathered in Malmö last weekend (November 25 – 26) to hear

“We must all commit to embracing the principle of an integrated multi-agency approach and take the steps necessary to demonstrate it in practice – not just for high-profile matches, but as a matter of routine.” With these words UEFA Executive Committee member and UEFA Stadium and Security Committee vice-chairman František Laurinec greeted more than 300 participants at the 2016/17 UEFA-EU Stadium and Security Conference in Bucharest earlier this month. Mr Laurinec added: “It i

Apart from the regular standard training, education and strategy meetings, 2015/16 saw a number of developments of landmark importance in the evolution of the SLO project. In January 2016 SD Europe were awarded observer status on the Standing Committee of the European Convention on Spectator Violence (TR-V) for a renewable period of three years. And towards the end of the season SD Europe organised, with the support of UEFA, the inaugural European SLO network meeting in Swede

Risk Assessments. The Maldives. Tom Sawyer. What links these apparently unrelated things? Answer: they were all referred at one point or another during the opening workshop of the Clubs and Supporters for Better Governance in Football project, which was held at partner FC United of Manchester’s home stadium, Broadhurst Park. As that suggests, the 48 hours touched on a wide range of topics, with all the various participants bringing their own perspectives and experiences to th

SD Europe was amongst the organisations present at the third UEFA Football and Social Responsibility workshop held last week, at UEFA’s headquarters in Nyon. Following the publication of UEFA’s third Football and Social Responsibility Report, which features in-depth examination of the work undertaken by UEFA’s various FSR partners, this year’s workshop took a look at planned changes to the reporting format, as well as UEFA’s future FSR strategy. Presentations on other aspects

SD Europe are delighted to announce that the first meeting of a working group consisting of club SLOs from around Europe will take place in Stockholm from May 18th to May 20th. The ‘first eleven’ of the network are: Dirk Vos (KAA Gent) representing Belgium, Lasse Bauer (Brøndby IF) representing Denmark, Jonathan Waite (Tottenham) representing England, Thomas Kirschner (Schalke 04) representing Germany), Ton Strooband (Feyenoord) representing Netherlands, Arne-Christian Eggen