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BBC’s Documentary “Stadiums of Hate” and Manufacturing of the News: Case Study in Moral Panics and Media Manipulation

Magdalena Rek-Woźniak1 and Wojciech Woźniak1

Abstract The article is based on a critical case study of the BBC’s investigative documentary titled Stadiums of Hate and the public’s response to it. The documentary was broadcasted 11 days before the kickoff of Euro 2012 (UEFA [Union of European Football Associations] European Championships in Football), the first sport mega event hosted in Poland and Ukraine. The main theme was football-related racism and violence allegedly threatening the safety of the fans coming to the tournament. The article follows Amanda Rohloff’s proposal combining the Eliasian conceptual framework of civilizing processes with the moral panics approach to describe the effort to amplify the spiral of public outcry toward the hosts of Euro 2012 in an attempt to modernize and civilize the Eastern European world of football. The moral panics spiral was brought to an end by the tournament which did not justify grim predictions. The article combines analysis of media content and the public statements with interviews conducted with some of the informants of the BBC journalists.

Keywords moral panics, sport mega events, mass media, Euro 2012, orientalism

Euro 2012: Before the Kickoff

The UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) European Football Championships (hereafter “Euro”) are organized every 4 years. Even though the tournament is restricted

1Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Łódź, Poland

Corresponding Author: Wojciech Woźniak, Department of Sociology of Social Structures and Social Change, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Łódź, 90-214 Łódź, Poland. Email: wojciech.wozniak@uni.lodz.pl

899244 JSSXXX10.1177/0193723519899244Journal of Sport and Social IssuesRek-Woźniak and Woźniak research-article2020

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to European participants, it is perceived in the literature as the third largest sport mega event (SME), after the Olympic Games and the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup (Klauser, 2011; Gratton et al., 2006). Euro 2012, cohosted by Poland and Ukraine, was the largest SME organized in Central and Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War.1

Even though Euro was a time-specific event, its consequences began well before the kickoff. It had been presented in the public discourse as an unprecedented oppor- tunity for the modernization of the country and clear confirmation of Poland’s interna- tional reputation, proof of successful postcommunist transformation. As elsewhere, political elites were allured by the promises concerning the legacies of the tourna- ments, such as international prestige, growing recognition of the host country’s brand, increased revenues from tourism, urban regeneration, and infrastructural investments (see Alegi, 2008; D. Black, 2007; Grix & Lee, 2013; Müller, 2011). Drawing on Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power, hosting SMEs can be seen as one of the strategies of public diplomacy. The states are interested in confirming their international recogni- tion, showcasing their economic capabilities, and enhancing the national pride as a “nation to be reckoned with” (Alegi, 2008, p. 397; see also: Grix, 2013).

Euro 2012 was explicitly defined as one of Poland’s main national priorities in the exposé of Prime Minister Donald Tusk in 2007 and in the political manifestos of all major parties. It was unanimously perceived by political elites as the main geopolitical challenge, compared with the previous goals of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). It was a unifying event, repre- sented in media and political debate as the ultimate confirmation of Poland’s interna- tional recognition and economic standing. All major political parties were involved in either submitting the proposal or ensuring political guarantees or in the preparations the event. Consequently, the tournament was exempted from political conflict. A bill introducing exceptional legal solutions to the hosting of Euro was approved in 2007 by the Parliament with 412 votes in support and just two abstentions, reflecting an unprec- edented unanimity between the otherwise bitterly conflicted parties (Woźniak, 2013, 2015). The public debate in Poland completely disregarded numerous scholarly works presenting the empirical data which falsify or question enthusiastically embraced (by media and political elites) thesis about the massive economic benefits of hosting an SME (for a summary of these studies see Zimbalist, 2015). The editor-in-chief of one of the Polish weekly magazines, interviewed by us for another research project, admit- ted that shortly before the kickoff of Euro 2012, Prime Minister Donald Tusk orga- nized a clandestine meeting with the heads of 40 of Poland’s largest mainstream media outlets (broadsheet newspapers, tabloids, weekly magazines, state owned, and private TV stations and news channels). Asking for their support and forbearance, he referred to the importance of the event for the public image of the state. His plea was met with understanding even from those representatives of journalism who regularly declared their independence from political pressure (Woźniak, 2019).

A few days later, on May 28, 2012, BBC’s Panorama broadcasted the documentary Stadiums of Hate. Panorama is one of BBC’s flagship programs and is aired world- wide. The documentary Stadiums of Hate was broadcast in the prime time and the

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narrator in the movie was Chris Rogers, award winning investigative journalist and long-standing presenter or the BBC Panorama.2 Rogers was the main author of the movie; he traveled in Poland and Ukraine together with his uncredited researchers and was responsible for its content along with editor Tom Giles. Only these two are listed in the credits of the movie.

The format of the program and the brand of the BBC immediately attracted the massive public and media attention. The main theme of the movie was violence, rac- ism, and anti-Semitism at Ukrainian and Polish stadiums which could put at risk fans coming to the Euro 2012. The question “whether the choice of hosts was appropriate and how to minimize the risks” organized the narrative and the quotations from Sol Campbell, famous footballer and former captain of the English national team, who warned fans about the deadly threats awaiting them in Poland and Ukraine and urged them to stay at home, were on the headlines of global media soon after the broadcast. The movie and the following debate are the main topics of this case study conducted under the conceptual framework of moral panic, as defined by Stanley Cohen and fol- lowers. Our main argument is that the episode under scrutiny can also be seen as an example of much broader phenomenon “civilizing offensive” of the West toward the East.

Theoretical Framework

Moral Panics, Orientalism, and the “Civilizing Mission”

The case of Stadiums of Hate fulfills most of the criteria to be described as moral pan- ics. The framework of moral panics will be used to picture the effort to amplify the spiral of public outcry toward the hosts of Euro 2012 in an attempt to modernize and civilize the Eastern European world of football.

The article will follow the Amanda Rohloff’s proposal combining the Eliasian con- ceptual framework of civilizing processes with the moral panics approach. Rohloff points at many commonalities between the two, underlining that they are processual and focused on relations and that the concept of social reality is similarly critically understood in both of them (Rohloff, 2011a, 2011b; also see, Hier, 2016). Rohloff elaborates on the interrelations between two approaches:

This theory of civilizing processes explains an overall gradual shift from social constraint towards self-constraint (whereby controls become increasingly internalized in the form of self-regulation), increasing foresight, and widening circles of mutual identification. . . During moral panics, a social problem comes to be (re)defined as something that needs to be dealt with “before it is too late”; a perceived crisis.

Concerned moral entrepreneurs expect a reaction to the problem which can be “exag- gerated and distorted” or invented, as a result of increased media attention on a social problem: “it is here that the civilizing process contributes to the development of moral panics: increased division of labour and increasing expertization of knowledge lead to

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increasing reliance on others for information about the reality of social problems” (Rohloff, 2011b, pp. 637–638).

The moral panics episodes against Eastern Europeans steered by the British media are already well documented in the literature. They concerned the threats stemming from the massive inflow of migrants from this part of the Europe after the accession to the EU. These concerned the expected growth in crime (Mawby & Gisby, 2009) and the weakening position of native British people on a labor market (Fitzgerald & Smoczynski, 2015). These episodes, as the majority of moral panics, were orches- trated and steered by tabloid press. We attempt to investigate whether the case of Stadiums of Hate can be treated as a significantly different and unusual moral panics episode, as the BBC is widely perceived as a symbol of quality media, which rarely get involved into winding up deviance amplification spirals.

The depiction of the actual threat, troublemakers, potential victims, and suggested remedies seems to fit in the patterns analyzed in contemporary postcolonial studies. Following classical work by Edward Said (1978), orientalism is defined as the way of imagining “East” as culturally backward, incomprehensible, and as such requiring pacification and modernization suggesting the existence of deep and long-lasting dif- ferences between “rational” West and “irrational” East. The East is depicted as danger- ous and

The threats arising from the Orient are often associated with inclinations towards ethnic and religious conflicts. It is worth noting that even if similar tendencies appear in the West, they are usually treated as exceptions. Ethnic or religious tensions appearing in the East are usually recognized as its inherent, distinctive features. The threats and risks produced by the Orient create the need for its control. (Zarycki, 2010, p. 74)

Some scholars elaborated on a binary schemes inbuilt in the images of the region (Buchowski, 2006; Kuus, 2004). Even if different degrees of “Easterness”/“Westerness” are assigned to particular locations (such as Balkans, Russia, and Poland), the distinc- tion between the “civic” West and the “nationalist” East seems to be particularly prom- inent feature of the Western debate. As Kuus convinces, following Western patterns is presented as the only “remedy” for the threat of nationalism, so peripheral and semi- peripheral societies are put into constant pressure to make up the distance. “Discourse of civilizational competences” is eagerly used to justify not only cultural but also political and economic domination of the West, which is usually publicly presented as “civilizing mission” and bringing enlightenment to “barbarians.”

Method

The article applies approach developed by Stanley Cohen in his seminal work on “Folk Devils and Moral Panics” (Cohen, 2011), where he captured the process of moral panic development. The analysis of media content supplemented with tradi- tional fieldwork (observations and interviewing, see Cohen, 2011) enabled reconstruc- tion of both inaccuracies of media and political releases concerning threat caused by

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gangs (mods and rockers) and the mechanisms of turning risks into moral question within the public sphere. Since then, the original concept has been both empirically tested in numerous studies and inspired variety of theoretical accounts.

Our study is a modest attempt to follow Cohen’s approach, as we supplemented media content analysis with fieldwork (qualitative interviews). The content analysis concerns in the first place the movie itself and the variety of media messages produced in its aftermath. These were purposely selected from the database established to be the most illustrative for the tendencies described in a case study. For the purpose of this article, in-depth interviews were conducted in May 2016 with three interviewees involved in production of the documentary as the informants of the BBC crew. This was done to gather additional firsthand data on the process of manufacturing the news.

This term, as used by Mark Fishman (1980), points at distortions or misrepresenta- tions which stem rather from editorial bias or professional routines than from con- scious motivations of the media owners representing the interests of the capital or political elites. It should be thus differentiated from manufacturing consent as defined by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (2002). Although those authors tend to see media content as clearly ideology-driven channels of propaganda serving the interests of elites, we would rather assume that their actual message result from various factors. They are determined by daily micro-level routinized practices of media employees who are used to produce certain type of media content. Second, the editorial or jour- nalistic bias stems from their personal attitudes and ingrained stereotypes of media workers and editors. Finally, we also argue that the content of quality media in the process of tabloidization is also affected, thereby hampering the serious and fact- driven debate.

The analysis starts with the documentary which as we argue ignited the moral panic spiral, subsequently we take into account the debate which followed and the process of dissipation of the moral panic episode.

Results

“You Can Come Back in a Coffin”: A Horror Story From the East

Many moral panics researchers claim that turning “risk” into “moral question” is inherent for such processes. The same applies to orientalizing discourses, where the East is presented not only as threatening (and not even primarily) physically but also as putting at risk “western” values.

The argumentation in Stadiums of Hate seems to fit this pattern. The horror is con- structed mainly via exemplary stories told by the narrator, repeated zooms at crowds rioting in the stadiums, and neo-Nazi iconography as an element of visual identifica- tion of the football hooligans. The songs used as the soundtrack add to the atmosphere of danger and violence. The songs “Firestarter” by the Prodigy and “Angel” by Massive Attack can serve as good examples here. Both are the classics of the British independent scene of the late 1990s, characterized by “dirty” and disturbing sound. In the first one, the effect is achieved by mixing fast, electronic beats with industrial

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metal and punk rock elements, while in the second the beat is slow, deep, and sup- ported by the wall of guitars. Also the music videos became famous for their menacing tone created by, respectively, the scenes filmed in an abandoned London Underground, featuring a scary-looking man shouting into the camera and a sequence of angry mob chasing a single human through an empty, dark parking lot. Throughout the whole documentary under study, we can repeatedly witness similar sequences of violent crowds filmed by the BBC; they actually follow immediately the scenes depicting the euphoric celebrations which followed the announcement of the UEFA’s decision granting Poland and Ukraine with the rights to host the event. Another recurring motif is a bare-chested thug, wearing balaclava, presented against the milling crowd.

The actual probability of violent and racist incidents during Euro 2012 was hardly measured and presented in the documentary. The data referred to the UEFA-funded report from 2010 listing, according to Panorama, reported 133 serious hate crimes inside Polish stadiums. The document, prepared by the consortium of Polish and Ukrainian anti-fascists’ watchdog organizations together with FARE, international body of this kind cooperating with UEFA, was used not only uncritical but also mis- quoted. The authors of the report do not use the term serious hate crime at all, instead they write about incidents (East European Monitoring Centre, 2011). They listed 133 cases of different types and significances. Serious instances of disorder and brawls with the police or usage of clearly racist chants were included together with the xeno- phobic slogans written on the walls in some of the cities or inappropriate comments made by journalists and football officials. This includes also the commentary by one of the coaches criticizing the growing number of foreigners in lower leagues in Poland, which in his opinion blocks the development of talented Polish youth. The racist back- ground of some of the incidents concerned badges/banners with nationalist symbols worn or displayed by the fans and many of the incidents happened outside the stadi- ums while some outside of Poland.3 Although the moral despise of any incidents with racist or xenophobic background is understandable, the label of hate crime serves the purposes of—what moral panic scholars would call—exaggeration and distortion of the argument. Mere incidents would not allow formulating the judgments from the position of unquestionable moral superiority. As Hunt argues: “The particular signifi- cance of posing risks as ‘moral questions’ is that it acts as a mechanism of closure . . . The assertion that the issue is a ‘moral question’ excludes considerations other than moral judgments” (Hunt, 2003, pp. 181–182). So the possibility of racist violence in Eastern Europe is reframed into “moral certainty.” The role of BBC reporter as moral entrepreneur becomes then to attach a moral responsibility both for increasing the risk and for assuring security during tournament.

Although Polish and Ukrainian football hooligans are charged first and foremost, the UEFA (the European Football Federation who is the organizer of the tournament) is pointed at by Rogers. The accusations concern the very decision to organize the tournament in Poland and Ukraine and the doubts about the sufficiency of actions undertaken to provide security and combat racism. The president of the UEFA was too

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busy to speak to Panorama and no other representatives of the organization appear in the documentary.

The final dialog of the movie between Rogers and Sol Campbell encapsulates both deadly seriousness of the threat and its universal character (everyone who decides to go to Poland and Ukraine is at risk). The emotional message is strengthened by the reference to the notion of family:

Rogers: “Would you recommend families to travel to EURO 2012?” Campbell: “No chance. Stay at home. Watch on TV. Don’t even risk it. Because . . .

you can end up . . . you can come back in a coffin.”

This exchange was also used in the teaser of the documentary becoming probably the most common quotation reproduced in the following debates sparked by the program.

“Distant Cousins in the UEFA Family of Football”4: The (Un)clear Portrait of Folk Devil(s)

As the abstract notion, the “evil” would be difficult to handle in public debate. The con- struction of a simplified “folk devil” figure helps to personalize the threat and to focus public attention. Also at this point, the mechanisms of “othering” described by Stanley Cohen and followers can be seen as somehow parallel to the findings of postcolonial studies. Stadiums of Hate is aimed at naming and blaming racism and nationalism at football hooligans, but these attitudes are also presented as an expression of “civiliza- tional incompetence” of the Eastern societies, which is a much broader problem.

Major part of the movie (in a part devoted to Poland) was filmed in the cities of Łódź and Cracow. Interestingly, none of them was the host city during Euro 2012. However, in a landscape of Polish football fandom, they are recognized for the most fierce and frequently violent derby rivalries (ŁKS and Widzew in Łódź; Cracovia and Wisła in Kraków). In addition, in 2012, Łódź was the only large city in Poland where the stadiums were not renovated. Thus, the movie presents two decrepit stadiums utterly different from the ones built for the Euro. Furthermore, in Łódź and Cracow, the local rivalries are frequently accompanied by the anti-Semitic resentments. Fans of both clubs in Łódź and fans of Wisła use the term “Jews” as an insult directed at the opponents.

Polish fans are introduced by the narrator:

For a hundred years of football history they have got some of the most passionate fandom in the world . . . They’ve got the stadiums . . . they’ve got the spectacle . . . but they’ve also got a big problem . . . a reputation for violence and racism.

Then Rogers explains that every Polish team has its “hardcore supporters” calling themselves ultras. They “make an atmosphere” at matches, but also cause a lot of trouble.

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This is not anyhow contextualized, which can create an impression that ultras are genuinely Polish, endemic phenomenon. There is no single piece of information that they are present at the terraces in Western Europe, particularly in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. It is not mentioned that the notion is not equivalent to the hooligans (Doidge, 2015; Spaaij & Viñas, 2005). Furthermore, the ultras rarely consti- tute a significant group among fans of national teams, especially when tickets to the games are allocated in a draw. It would not be difficult for anyone interested in the topic to learn that groups of fans of Polish national team and fans of Polish clubs do not overlap, particularly in its radical segment (Kossakowski, 2015; Antonowicz et al., 2016; Małczyński, 2015). The most hardcore fans were actually critical about the Euro 2012 and perceived as one ultimate manifestations of commercialization of football, protesting against the expenditures. This was part of wider anticommercial movement of European fans united under the umbrella term “Against Modern Football” (Burski, 2013; Gońda, 2013).

The movie delivers examples for civilizational incompetence of Polish football hooligans, who are called by Rogers “distant cousins in the UEFA family of football” and who are assumed to fall behind not only from “Western” standards but also main- stream Polish society. The narrator also states openly, “Jonathan Ornstein has lived in Poland for over ten years. He believes that most Poles happily accepts other faiths. But the football hooligans are yet to catch up the wider Polish society.”

However, the competence of “wider Polish society” is also questioned by underlin- ing helplessness, indifference among general public, and even unwillingness to coun- teract extremely backward views by the authorities (the examples of negligence of Polish Football Association). The gap between Poland and England is also stressed openly by Sol Cambpel, commenting on the scenes shot in Kraków: “I’m just glad it’s not like that in England. I know it was the one stage, but in the twentieth first century this is on a different level.”

The topic of anti-Semitism at the Polish stands deserves further elaboration. It is not only in Poland, where the term “Jew” functions as an insult. Differently than in well documented cases of Tottenham Hotspur in England or Ajax Amsterdam in Netherlands (Poulton & Durell, 2014), the term remained offensive in Poland, even though since the end of the World War II Poland has been the most homogeneous European country with very low share of people of color, of other than Roman Catholic denomination, or of other than Polish ethnic origins. Abundant Jewish population per- ished in the Holocaust. Therefore, anti-Semitic clichés in contemporary, colloquial language are not aimed against existing ethnic or national minority. These should be analyzed within historical processes. Anthropologist researching the prevalence of anti-Semitism in the population without Jews terms the insulting stereotypes present in contemporary Polish as “language fossils” which survived in the language in a longue durée of historical processes up to contemporary day (Tokarska-Bakir, 2008, for an account on anti-Semitism among fans in Łódź, see Burski, 2015). The roots of these processes stem inter alia from the long-lasting symbolic domination of Roman Catholic Church, which particularly in the interwar period legitimized growth of anti- Semitic language and policies. In cities with a significant share of Jewish population

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which could be exemplified by Cracow and Łódź, the coexistence of multiethnic pop- ulations, especially in times of economic crisis, was far from harmonious, although the ethnically motivated violence was relatively rare (far more frequent in these cities and regions where Jewish diaspora was scarce, see Zysiak et al., 2018; for the description of political significance of anti-Semitism in pre-war period see Marzec, 2016). In the postwar period, large echelons of Polish society actually benefited from the demise of Jewish population by taking over their houses, flats, and jobs.

Again, the BBC was not interested in more exhaustive explanation or interpretation of the phenomenon, even though they were in contact with a sociologist actually researching the topic. They were also disinterested in recognizing the current state of debates about anti-Semitism in Poland; the editor of the incriminated documentary claimed authoritatively in the article defending it that only since the movie was broad- casted the topic was brought to the limelight (Giles, 2012).

As in orientalist discourses civilizational (in)competence is tightly connected to (un)deservingness (Buchowski, 2006), the picture of “barbarians” is hardly nuanced. The complexity of historical heritage and present contexts could thus weaken the main argument behind the narration, which is put in another dialogue:

Rogers: “Do you think UEFA were wrong then to choose Poland and Ukraine?” Campbell: “I think they were wrong because what they should say is until we see

massive improvement that you have sorted that, you’ll never gonna get this tour- nament, you do not deserve this prestigious tournament in your country.”

“UEFA Has a Vision”: A “Civilizing Mission” in the East

Amanda Rohloff (2011b) used the Eliasian concept of “civilizing offensive, defined as “deliberate (but not necessarily successful) attempts by people who considered them- selves to be “civilized” to “improve” the manners and morals of people whom they considered to be “less civilized” or “barbaric” (p. 77). In Stadiums of Hate, a role of missionary, carrying “western” values to the East, was attributed to UEFA. “UEFA has a vision,” Rogers says during the opening scenes, “a vision of the united family of football. This June the family of football has chosen to pay a visit to Eastern Europe.”

Although East Europeans are depicted as not ready for hosting the big international event organized by the Western standards, the UEFA undertakes the mission to teach the hosts the “proper” principles. Even differences between East and West are too substantial and, thus, assigning Euro 2012 to Poland and Ukraine can be seen as chance (doomed to failure?) to level up those societies. The efforts of experts from antiracist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), engaged in preparations to the tournament thanks to the intervention from the West (UEFA), are presented as heroic. As Rogers comments during antidiscriminatory workshop for Polish stewards: “It can be an uphill struggle in a country where ethnic and religious minorities are all but invisible.” As Kuus (2004) notes, orientalist narratives are highly ideological, but also elated to the tangible interest of actors from core countries, such as corporations and state agencies. “Civilizing offensive” frequently covers economic and political

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interests. In turn, this dimension of “UEFA civilizing mission” in Poland and Ukraine is completely pushed aside in the documentary.

“At the End of the Day, I Was Quite Happy They Didn’t Use My Name”5: Who Speaks for Subalterns?

In Stadiums of Hate, the opposition between “civilized” and “barbaric” is reinforced through the choice of local “experts”6 approached by the BBC team and commenting on the situation in Poland and Ukraine. In the first part, there are two players of Nigerian origin who suffered from racist abuse while playing in Poland; Jacek Purski, representing antiracist watchdog “Nigdy Więcej” (“Never again”); Jonathan Ornstein, director of the Jewish Community Center in Kraków; and Nick Lowles from British advocacy group “Hope not Hate.”

This seems to correspond with Said’s note that the East is usually described in the West and by Western experts, while its own representatives are not able talk about themselves freely or to interpret their own culture or history. “Subaltern cannot speak” to use famous words by Spivak (1988). Said underlined, the subordinate role assigned to Eastern elites and experts who appear to be

mainly local informants of the theoreticians from the center, unable to significantly affect the image of the Orient in the West. What is more, they are often involved in <<civilizing activities>> of the Orient which could be seen as an adaptation of the region to the values and interests of the West. (Zarycki, 2010, p. 77)

In this context, the appearance of Purski, the sole Polish expert “civilizationally competent” enough to instruct stewards how to recognize and react in case of national- ist or racist acts during Euro 2012, seems particularly interesting and worth noticing, as Rogers underlines that “Purski’s work is financially supported by UEFA.”

It seems that the BBC was not interested in getting in-depth information concerning the context and specificities of Poland’s football scene or rather: They were not inter- ested in presenting the nuances to the viewers. This could be supported by the fact that they were in contact with Polish sociology PhD candidate who was at that time con- ducting the research among the fans of local teams in Łódź. The journalists approached him as an expert with insider knowledge, yet did not use his expertise. On the contrary, he appears in a movie as one of the fans present at the stadium during the derby game. It is stated that he was approached as one from the stand of hardcore supporters who was not involved in anti-Semitic chanting.

He was interviewed at the street, and in the background of the shots showing him with a journalist, we can see police troops in full antiriot gear spraying the fans with tear gas in front of the stadium. Recounting the events from 2012 in 2016, the inter- viewee, currently the colleague of the authors of this article from the Faculty of Economics and Sociology at the University of Łódź, recollects that his main task as described by the BBC crew was to serve as a gatekeeper, to accompany them to the

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derby game and to inform them about specificities of local scene and Poland providing an expert commentary:

Well, when I saw the movie I was quite surprised. It seems to be that to some extent they were looking for facts confirming their agenda. To show barbaric Eastern Europeans and to ask if they deserve Euro 2012. And honestly, it does not require time or effort to find the signs of racism or anti-Semitism in Poland. But it’s BBC and you would expect them to make at least attempt to get deeper into the context of the phenomena. . . . At the end of the day, I was quite happy they didn’t use my name or academic affiliation. I said what I said, but I wouldn’t like to legitimize this whole message.

“I Still Think That the Journalism Was Terrible”7: The Legitimacy of Counter-Narratives

The story of horrors prevalent at Polish stands was immediately met with counter- narratives. As the Euro 2012 was crucial for country branding of the state eager to confirm its growing international status, the most prominent politicians in Poland were involved in debunking the story by the BBC. Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland visited John Godson, the Black, Nigerian-born MP living in the city of Łódź. During the press conference, both politicians were praising the hospitality of Poles. The message was aimed mainly at English fans who should not be threatened by the scaremongering of the BBC’s show (Sikora, 2012). At the same time, Godson took part in Q&A session with the Economist, criticizing the biased program, claiming that comparisons of multiethnic United Kingdom with almost fully homogeneous Poland are unwise. In his narrative, the fact that in a country with hardly any people of color and with very scarce (4,000 in a population of almost 40 million) African immigration, himself and one other (Zambian-born Killion Munyana) Black politician were elected to the Parliament and previously to the local authorities, and can serve as a testimony of Polish openness (K. T., 2012a; 2012b).

Probably the harshest criticism against BBC came from Jonathan Ornstein, the Executive Director of the Jewish Community Centre in Cracow who was convinced that Stadiums of Hate was an example of news manufacturing. In an open letter to “The Economist,” Ornstein claimed that selection of the parts from the interview he gave to BBC was highly selective and manipulative. He also accused BBC of cherry- picking the informants:

I suggested to the reporting team that they interview the two Israeli footballers who played for Wisła Krakow this season and were active members of the Jewish community so that they could hear firsthand about their positive experiences. The reporters responded that this line of inquiry “didn’t fit their story,” a response which perplexed me. They spoke to the prosecutor in Łódź, they spoke to someone in the police department, they spoke to an Israeli football player who’s playing in Warsaw. And they didn’t include those things. They didn’t include anything that didn’t fit with what it was they wanted to show. (K. T., 2012a)

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The BBC crew did not approach Jewish footballers playing for Wisła Cracow, the fans of which were depicted as radically anti-Semitic. Maor Melikson was at that time the biggest star of Wisła and because of his dual Israelian Polish citizenship was con- sidered as a possible call up for a Polish national team. The controversy arose whether the suggestion to interview them was formulated at all. Mariusz Żurawik, a journalist of Gazeta Wyborcza (the major Polish broadsheet daily) and the direct witness, con- firmed that to the “Economist.”8

Interviewed for the purpose of this article 4 years later, Ornstein sustained this opinion:

When they approached me I had no doubts. Listen, it’s a BBC so I understand there is at least a reasonable level of professionalism. I understand that Panorama was a program taken seriously, not something frivolous. . . . I was shocked when I saw what they came out with. I was very surprised when I saw the movie . . . My overall opinion was how much better thing have gone in Poland and then suddenly I found myself as part of the television piece that was viewed by millions of people saying all those negative things. And I felt that that it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t what I intended to say. So I wanted to put the record straight to the best that I could. I spent a lot of time in here explaining the situation in Poland in the world. I thought that what I was saying, my message was very much twisted by the BBC. So like me being part of the picture that was painted was not good for me and it was calling into question my objectivity.

The international and particularly British audience also formulated criticism of basic mistakes which could weaken the gravity of the main massage giving the example of the map illustrating the movie where Poland was bordering Austria instead of Czech Republic: “imagine if you are a Pole watching this and having to take seriously a pro- gram that doesn’t even know which countries Poland borders with” (Gentle, 2012).

Many of the aforementioned inaccuracies were underlined with the reference to various past events which occurred in the United Kingdom. One of the Irish commen- tators noted that the fierce rivalry between Cracow-based football clubs described in the movie have little impact on the security during Euro 2012, as no single game is played in this city. He suggested that this would be parallel to warning fans against going to the football game at Wembley Stadium in London, because of football-related sectarian violence in Glasgow (Jacob, 2012). Some of the media referred directly to the prejudice toward the Eastern Europe, which clouds the perception of complexities of the situation in Poland. This is fueled also by ingrained moral superiority of more developed and civilized Western standards which should be taught to Easterners by all means necessary (T. Black, 2012).

Although fact-checking the movie, Polish media pointed also at alleged hypocrisy of their British counterparts in depicting the “Wild East” of Europe. In August 2011, London for a few days was a scene of large-scale riots. In several districts, shops were looted, houses burnt, police were attacked with Molotov cocktails, and (partly) racially motivated violence was difficult to stop nonetheless of the mobilization of massive police forces. Sixteen people were killed, many more injured, and more than 3,000 arrested. Polish moral entrepreneurs defending the image of country rightly underlined

Rek-Woźniak and Woźniak 13

that no riots of this scale happened in Poland even during the communist Martial Law in the 1980s and certainly not a single time since the fall of communism. It was pointed out in many messages that the city of London, hosting Summer Olympic Games 2012, was actually more dangerous than Poland.

This context was used in numerous memes produced by Internet users. One of the most iconic is the photo presenting a dramatic scene of women saved by firemen from the burning house in course of 2011 riots with the writing: “London 2012. Stay home. Unless you want to return in a coffin.” Conspiracy theory was also formulated, claim- ing that the BBC together with British government orchestrated the attack on Euro 2012 to discourage British citizens from traveling to Poland. They were supposed to stay home and spend money during Summer Olympic Games 2012 (Nowak, 2012).

“I Think We’ve Lost a Lot of Fans”9: Dissipation

The scaremongering was further fueled by the news about alleged racist chants aimed at black players from the Netherlands during training session before the start of the tournament. This was used by the BBC in the follow-up discussions to confirm their thesis. These allegations were contradicted by Dutch media and the investigation by UEFA did not confirm the incidents, nevertheless just before the tournament, the topic of racism came back to media attention (Gazeta.pl, 2012).

In the analyzed case, the dissipation, that is, the receding of moral panics from the public limelight, came quickly. The experience of Euro 2012 empirically debunked the claims about the threats to the fans. The number of violent incidents as well as the reported cases of misbehavior with racist or xenophobic background was scarce. The most serious brawl occurred before the game Poland versus Russia. It was connected to the fact that Polish authorities agreed that Russian fans can celebrate Russia Day (12th June) with a march to the stadium through main Warsaw arteries. The provoca- tive banners displayed by Russian fans fueled the long-lasting hostility between Polish and Russian troublemakers. The majority of Polish hooligans involved in the riot and arrested in its aftermath was not going to the stadium at all, did not possess tickets to the game, and came to Warsaw only because of the expected confrontation.

UEFA that was under particular attention of the media in this respect, working with anti-fascists nongovernmental watchdogs, reported altogether 11 racist incidents (six in Poland) in course of the tournament involving Spanish, Russian, German, and Croatian fans (UEFA 2012). Many British media outlets admitted the exaggeration of fears. Roy Hodgson, the coach of English national team, claimed that the successful scaremongering probably discouraged some fans from coming to the tournament which consequently diminished the support for the team (“Hodgson: Ukraine ‘Horror Stories’ Deterred Fans,” 2012).

Summary

The BBC’s goal to enlighten the East was visible in the official statement of the BBC editor where he blatantly suggested that thanks to the Panorama, Poland is for the first

14 Journal of Sport and Social Issues 00(0)

time in many years was having a debate about the anti-Semitism among football fan- dom (Giles, 2012). In the article, the Panorama crew was presented at the same time as a whistleblower alarming the European public opinion and decision makers about forthcoming disaster and, at the same time, a watchdog authorized to guard the stan- dards of liberal democracy as well as to evaluate the actions against them. This unique status and the position of moral superiority allowed to stand ready, if not immune to all possible allegations. This is very much in line with predefined format of the BBC’s Panorama. Many of the episodes were devoted to investigative studies over more or less serious instances of crimes, violations of social and/or moral order which included sex-trafficking, corruption in sport and politics, scientology, sexual abuse, and more.

The seriousness and importance of the BBC mission at the verge of Euro 2012 kickoff was underlined by various language constructs. One can read in the commen- tary by the editor of Panorama that the “investigation” undertaken by the journalists was aimed at “assessing” whether UEFA was really “enforcing” its own zero-tolerance policy. The moral high ground of the BBC crew as whistleblowers was also con- structed by contrasting their activities with lack of concern by the football governing bodies, including UEFA President.

Regardless of the origins, all the substantial and substantiated criticisms were ignored and disregarded as the defense of the status quo. The reactions of Polish and Ukrainian football associations to the questions submitted by the BBC and to the doc- umentary were framed as highly unprofessional and interpreted as the proof of their ignorance, if not approval to the violence in and around the stadiums. The already- mentioned UEFA-funded report was presented as sole credible source of statistical data about hate crimes in Poland and Ukraine and the episodes filmed by the Panorama team as the final proof for the urgency of problem.

As mentioned previously, the roots of anti-Semitism in Poland are varied, but not necessarily different than in other European countries. Contemporary anti-Semitic lan- guage used by football fans remains a problem stemming from various historical pro- cesses. The question why the BBC did not decide to include more contextual information, even though they were in contact with a sociologist actually researching the topic and a prominent Jew leading the institution caring for cultural and historical heritage of Polish Jews, could be answered first by relating to sensationalist nature of contemporary electronic media and the tabloidization of the message occurring also in the allegedly quality media. The format of the 45-min long program does not necessar- ily encourage more nuanced perspective. Nevertheless, doubts raised by Jonathan Ornstein concerning the reasons behind the selection of the data and informants remain valid. In the contemporary European culture, the label of anti-Semitism (or a tolerance to anti-Semitism) is one of the most stigmatizing proofs of civilizational backward- ness. The final message from BBC was again aimed at the threats coming with the event and the further need to civilize those who cannot themselves understand their moral weaknesses.

Apart from the commentary rooted in the tradition of critical sociology and media studies which use the moral panic frame, the practical results of the analyzed case also need to be discussed. Even when we define counteracting racism, xenophobia, and

Rek-Woźniak and Woźniak 15

anti-Semitism as the ultimate moral good, the critical social sciences should not with- hold data and interpretations which cast a shadow over the means to achieve the good end. As shown above, the analysis of news manufacturing that could be interpreted from the case of Stadiums of Hate refers to the orientalizing discourse aimed at not fully civilized Eastern Europeans and the arguments about who deserves becoming a host of the football tournament (with implicit answer pointing at the civilized West).

In addition, the issue how the goals of tolerance, respect, and recognition could be strengthened remains open. The protests after the broadcast of the BBC documen- tary united unlikely allies. Jewish and Black community leaders, together with Gazeta Wyborcza, the major left-liberal-leaning newspaper for many years involved in counteracting xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism, were protesting against the manipulations.

At the same time, ultra-right-wing circles set up the usual narrative against the anti- Polish, biased and politically correct liberal European media. They, to the contrary, aim at disregarding the existence of the core problems concerning racism in Poland, which remains a shameful problem as anywhere it happens.

To understand the reactions of Polish mainstream or liberal circles, unique status of the British public broadcaster needs to be noted. Since the communist period, BBC brand was synonymous with the highest Western quality and accountability, identified in Poland with the highest possible journalistic standards and perceived as one of the trademarks of well-established old democracy as imagined from semiperipheral coun- try with limited experiences of free speech and democratic rule.

Racism and xenophobia in Polish football and in general public remains a serious problem. Due to homogeneity of Polish society resulting in lack of experiences with multiethnicity and multiculturalism in everyday life, it is probably more difficult to challenge than elsewhere. The Nigerian footballer interviewed in the movie claims, “I don’t think our part of the movie was exaggerated or manipulated, it was simply true and it remains true.” He also adds that a Black person living in Poland faces problems rarely experienced in the societies with more ethnically diverse population. He added that African born players are fully aware fans of which Polish football teams may show racist behavior and where they can expect frequent racial abuse. This actually is one of the factors influencing their decisions where to sign the contract and which clubs should be avoided.

The struggle against racism and xenophobia, however, will not be more successful thanks to the paternalizing and orientalizing messages of moral entrepreneurs on the crusade to civilize the East. As the Polish sociologist, interviewed for the purposes of both Stadiums of Hate (as a non-anti-Semite fan) and this article, summarized:

The negative side effect of the story is that people who really are racists or anti-Semites may use this kind of distorted or manufactured message as an excuse. They think: “if are attacking us and lying, then after all we’re not that bad if they need to lie about us.” The response to the program was very strong and it somehow united these people with those who care about media standards and the efficiency of fighting xenophobia. And they believe that manipulations are not a good way to do so.

16 Journal of Sport and Social Issues 00(0)

Acknowledgments

Authors express their gratitude to Travis Vogan for invaluable support while working on this paper. We would like to thank also Jonathan Ornstein and Jacek Burski for being important informants during our research.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Wojciech Woźniak https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9720-6595

Notes

1. The “Stadiums of hate” approached both host countries of Euro 2012, however this paper undertakes exclusively the part of the movie and its reception which is related to the in Polish case.

2. UK-based Jewish media revealed two years later that Chris Rogers was himself criticized and punished by the BBC when the recordings of him making a Nazi salute and goose- stepping during shooting of “Stadiums of Hate”, were revealed. Rogers admitted the wrongdoing and inappropriateness of what was intended to be a joke and was consequently suspended for two years as an author of Panorama materials. In March 2016 Rogers again was targeted by Jewish media for making remarks about the Israeli state during his which were interpreted as offensive. The controversy ended with apologies formulated by Rogers and BBC spokesperson (Jewish News, 2014, 2016).

3. The critical approach to the media messages is lacking also in some scholarly works. For instance, Matthew R. Watson in the paper from 2013, pertinently titled The Dark Heart of Eastern Europe, treats the Panorama’s Stadiums of Hate as factual, objective, and neutral. All the debate and criticism in the aftermath of the movie is mentioned in one single foot- note countered only by the reference to aforementioned report. Describing the content of the report, the author repeats unfounded claim about 133 serious hate crimes, which sug- gests that he did not actually familiarize himself with its content.

4. Explicit quotation from the movie narrator. 5. Quotation comes from the in-depth interview with Polish sociologist, an expert in

football fandom, whose appearance in the movie was introduced as the regular fan’s voice.

6. This means that they were introduced by their name and institutional affiliation. 7. Quotation comes from the in-depth interview with Jonathan Ornstein. 8. It needs to be underlined that Gazeta Wyborcza is at the forefront of fighting racism and

anti-Semitism in Poland. The newspaper itself was a victim of numerous anti-Semitic attacks provoked by the Jewish origins of its editor in chief Adam Michnik and of many prominent journalists.

Rek-Woźniak and Woźniak 17

9. Quotation comes from the English team manager, Roy Hodgson (“Hodgson: Ukraine ‘Horror Stories’ Deterred Fans,” 2012).

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Author Biographies

Magdalena Rek-Woźniak holds PhD in sociology and MA in culture studies. Main fields of her scientific interest have comprised social structure, intergenerational mobility, semi-phe- ripheric modernization and public policies in urban context as well as media representations of social problems.

Wojciech Woźniak holds PhD in sociology. His main field of interest covers relations between sport and policies/politics, social inequalities and public/political discourse analysis. He chairs Sociology of Sport section within Polish Sociological Association.