Future Center: Report on the Fan Project Meeting

Fan project meeting about the future center in Jena from 2.-4.9.2022 - A report by Tilo Schieck

"On the weekend from 2. to 4. September met in Jena experts and players of the Eastern European fan scene in soccer met with us, Martin Fischer and Tilo Schieck from the application team for the Center for German Unity and European Transformation, to get to know each other, to have a first exchange on how experiences from this scene can be used for the development and the work of the Future Center.

Ingo Petz is a journalist at Dekodera project that translates criticaltranslates critical texts from Belarus and Russia into German and makes them available. He is at home in the German and Eastern European fan scene and co-founded the "Fankurve Ost" ..

This is a 2014 created projectthat buildsbridges to Belarus, Ukraine and Russia through dedicated soccer fan culture. and to information on debates and developments concerning soccer in Eastern Europe. and provide information on debates and developments concerning football in Eastern Europe. Essential are seminars in which an open society (also using the example of the example of the very lively and institutionalized soccer fan culture in Germany) and experienced, and workshops and workshops in which the forms and working methods of socio-pedagogical fan work are taught. With the 2018 World Cup in Russia, this idea once again took on a special significance. This is accompanied by a media monitoring, which focuses on the socio-political developments surrounding Eastern European soccer. Sinceat a broad network was created in the fan scenes of the aforementionedn States. At present, however, thehe work, however, is on the oneen by the Repressionies after the Belarusian "election" in 2020 and secondly by Russia's aggression against Ukraine. In Belarus and Russia, such democracy-promoting work is currently not possible; it is no longer tolerated there and is ostracized. But also the Covid-pandemic had also affected the work by preventing direct encounters, which are indispensable for it, from taking place.

YahorKhavanski, a journalist and Social media manager from Belarus, currently working in Vilnius, is also involved in the project Fankurve Ost. He told intensively and moving about the the complicated situation in his country, about the repression that drives young people out of the country, about his experiences with thewith the soccer world thereand the situation of civil society in Belarus. in Belarus.

Third in the group was Matthias Stein from the Jena fan project. He and the Jena fans are not only active in the aforementioned Fankurve Ost project, but also have other contacts in Eastern Europe. He reported on the good connections with the fans of Polonia Warszawa and Luzk in the Ukraine, among others.

It was very interesting to learn how fan culture can find ways into and with the civil society of Eastern Europe, how an exchange became possible. It was very interesting to learn how fan culture can find ways into and with civil society in Eastern Europe, how an exchange became possible, and also which problems in the individual countries are hindering this today, or even making it impossible. So It would be good and important for a future center to take these experiences into account, to support the work of the project "Fan Curve", if necessary.s Fankurve project, if necessary in a new structure, and could bring up these completely different points of view. Exchange formats, strengthening of structures also in Eastern Europe, possibly also a mediation of these life worlds in an exhibition would be first ideas. There will be further talks on this.

In Jena, we have a good contact to Eastern Europe with the fan project and now after the meeting open ears for these ideas with all involved."