“Sports are a crucial arena for tackling hate, and more national football leagues should follow suit,” stated the European Jewish Congress.
(November 3, 2021 / JNS) Italy’s premier soccer league, Serie A, has agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism.
It made the announcement at a conference called “The Fight Against Anti-Semitism in Football: European Agreements,” the Italian-language Jewish publication Moked reported on Sunday. The event was held at the soccer league’s headquarters and led by Milena Santerini, Italy’s national coordinator against anti-Semitism.
At the meeting, she and Italy’s National Office Against Racial Discrimination recommended that Serie A teams incorporate the IHRA definition in their regulations and implement national strategies proposed by Santerini to tackle anti-Semitism.
Serie A fully supported the proposal and said discussions about implementing the IHRA definition would be held at an upcoming meeting with representatives from its 20 teams.
The league said it was open to organizing anti-Semitism training courses and talking with its teams about the importance of adding a code of ethics regulation dedicated to the subject matter. It also said it would create a “dedicated memorandum of understanding” to combat prejudice, hate speech and violence.
Those who attended the conference included Paolo Dal Pino, president of the Serie A league; Uriel Perugia, general secretary of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities; John Mann, the United Kingdom’s independent adviser on anti-Semitism; and Talia Bidussa from the Shoah Memorial in Milan.
“We are pleased that Serie A, Italy’s top football league, has adopted the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism,” said the European Jewish Congress via Twitter. “Sports are a crucial arena for tackling hate, and more national football leagues should follow suit.”