The Netherlands’ rightwards lurch has spread into stadiums
For a few hours, the heart of Dutch democracy was transformed into a battlefield. On September 20th, an anti-refugee protest in the centre of The Hague turned violent; police vans were set alight, and the headquarters of the progressive D66 party had its windows smashed in, with politicians across the political spectrum quickly condemning the events as unacceptable political violence. Amidst the fascist logos and placards calling for migrants to be ‘sent home’, there was the curious sight of a large banner reading ‘Dutch Firms United’, surrounded by flags bearing the names of football clubs from across the Netherlands. Dutch hooligans had been urged to “put club rivalry to the side” for one day in order to “save the Netherlands,” a call to arms which was answered by supporters of over twenty clubs, with devastating effects.
The riots in The Hague are not an isolated incident. The far-right has established itself as one of the three major political blocs in the Netherlands, as evidenced by last month’s parliamentary elections. While Geert Wilders’ anti-immigrant Party for Freedom (PVV) lost eleven seats, the far-right’s share of the vote actually grew, with Forum for Democracy and JA21– both of whom campaigned on the xenophobic dog whistle of “remigration”– each making significant gains at the ballot box. As a result, parties on the rightwards fringe of the political spectrum now occupy nearly thirty percent of seats in the Dutch parliament.
This drift to the right has also spread into Dutch football stadiums. This season, chants of ‘AZC, Weg Ermee’ (“Get rid of Asylum Reception Centres”) have entered the songbook at Dutch grounds, occasionally accompanied by displays of the Prinsenvlag, an orange-white-blue tricolour first used during the sixteenth-century Dutch Revolt which was later appropriated as a symbol of the collaborationist Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging during World War Two. Furthermore, there have been instances of overt racial abuse directed at players by supporters in the early months of this season at both the professional and amateur levels of the game, showing that the problem extends across the football pyramid.
Discriminatory chants are not a new phenomenon in Dutch football. For decades, anti-semitic songs and chants have been standard fare when Ajax, known as a ‘Jewish club’, travel to face rivals like Feyenoord or FC Utrecht. But according to Jasmin Seijbel, a lecturer and PhD candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam who researches discrimination in sports, the recent spate of anti-migrant chanting differs from the anti-semitic songs, which she notes are rooted in club rivalries and which do not necessarily reflect genuine anti-semitic beliefs. By contrast, the xenophobic choruses circulating in Dutch stadiums have also been heard at recent far-right demonstrations– including the riot in The Hague– and should as such be seen as an “expression of genuine anti-migrant views,” Seijbel told me in an email exchange.
This spread of politics into the stands is uncharted territory for the Netherlands. Unlike ultras groups elsewhere in Europe, Dutch supporter groups have generally refrained from taking explicit political stances, with James Montague, a British journalist and author of Among the Ultras, telling Dutch newspaper NRC that he can’t recall any comparable cases in the polder. But Montague argues that the entry of far-right slogans into football grounds mirrors the growing prevalence of rightist views amongst young men, a global phenomenon which has also touched the Netherlands: in October’s election, the PVV won the highest share of votes amongst men between 18 and 34.
Far-right sentiments have also manifested themselves in racist abuse of players. In September, Willem II’s German winger Samuel Bamba was subjected to monkey chants by Cambuur supporters, writing afterwards on Instagram that players are “sick and tired” of discriminatory behaviour. Last month, fans of amateur club Kozakken Boys directed chants of “cancer Moroccan” and “get rid of Asylum Reception Centres” at Spakenburg attacker Ahmed El Azzouti, who later had a smoke bomb thrown at him. To the National Coordinator Against Discrimination and Racism (NCDR), a Dutch government agency tasked with combatting racism, the abuse of El Azzouti demonstrates that discrimination remains a deep-seated problem within Dutch football. According to the NCDR, this “was not an incident, but part of a pattern” of racist invective directed at players, with El Azzouti himself noting that he’s dealt with cases of abuse almost every season of his long career in Dutch amateur football.
The question is how these depressing cases of abuse can be prevented in future. While the KNVB (the Dutch FA) has launched programmes intended to identify instances of racism and sanction those found guilty of discrimination, the NCDR believes that more action is required, calling for “tough, structural measures” including deducting points from clubs whose fans engage in racist behaviour. Seijbel agrees that the KNVB and clubs need to take more responsibility in clamping down on discrimination, adding that Dutch football’s authorities should take action to address structural inequalities which remain in the sport.
Football is a mirror to society, and reversing the growth of the far-right won’t be an overnight process. But the powers that be in Dutch football have work to do to prevent the sport from being hijacked by extremists. If no action is taken, the KNVB’s slogan of “our football belongs to everybody” will ring hollow.
Inthehalfspace 