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A coalition of football fan groups is appealing for club scarves to distribute to refugees in Calais as a practical and symbolic gesture to demonstrate support, and has launched a specially commissioned T-shirt to raise funds.
The “Refugees are my football family” campaign is being organised by the T-shirt company Philosophy Football and backed by the Football Supporters’ Federation, Football Action Network, Football Against Racism in Europe, Football Beyond Borders, Kick it Out, the Hope not Hate campaign and the fanzine When Saturday Comes.
All funds raised by the sale of a special T-shirt will go to Doctors of the World, which staffs the only medical clinic in the Calais camp and operates clinics in refugee camps across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
The Philosophy Football co-founder Mark Perryman said the aim was “to raise a lot of money going directly to where the help is needed most backed by hundreds, thousands, of fans wearing the message that ours is a football culture that is open and welcoming with a human generosity of spirit.”
He pointed to the rich history of refugees in football, from the first Spanish player to play in England to the fact that seven of the Switzerland squad at the Brazil World Cup had escaped from conflict in the Balkans.
Perryman said the campaign had been inspired in part by the Guardian columnist Marina Hyde, who recently wrote that the refugee crisis gripping Europe provided a context in which the vacuous phrase “football family” could acquire some meaning.
“If such a thing can ever be said to exist, then this issue gripping Europe should be among the very closest to its heart,” she wrote.
Across Germany, fans’ groups have organised displays welcoming refugees from Syria and elsewhere, while Bundesliga clubs have also offered symbolic and practical assistance.
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