“SPIN – Sport for Social Inclusion and Elimination of Racism in Football” was a conference organised by the Mahatma Gandhi Human Rights Organisation and the Hungarian Football Association, held on February 20th, 2012 at the HFA headquarters. 

The conference was opened by Dr. Zoltán Borbély, leader of the Press and Legal Department of HFA, who pointed out the laws in place about incitement and instigating hatred.

The first speaker was the vice president of HFA, Sándor Berzi, who presented the UEFA ten point action plan. The next speaker was Gibril Deen, chair of Mahatma Gandhi Human Rights Organisation and organizer of the conference. Mr. Deen stressed that he sees the best opportunity for social inclusion in sport. Péter Kovács, deputy security director of HFA pointed out, which was also mentioned by Zoltán Borbély, than a lot of atrocities stay hidden. Dr. György Szilágyi spoke at the conference as the chair of the fair play committee of HFA and stated that the anti-Roma attitude has been a central issue within fair play for a long time.

In the second half of the conference and workshop Dr. Ibolya Tomory, from the Comitas Pedagogical and Anthropological Organisation spoke about her experience in East Africa, from which she came to the conclusion that people from different cultures accept each other more in the field of sports, because performance is valued more in comparison to the cultural background and origin. Géza Róka, the manager of DVSC, is of the opinion that racism experienced in sports fields have deep roots in society and that the atrocities in stadiums are due to accumulated tensions. Levente Nyitrai, Foreign Policy, JHA and Human Rights Attaché of the British Embassy, talked about standing up against racism in England. István Mezei, leader of the Hungarian Roma Team, considered it important to emphasise the success story of the twenty year-old minority team (114 victories out of 116 matches). Ádám Jusztin, the chair of Maccabi VAC, summarised his club’s most important tasks and talked about how the members of the Jewish community were really successful in the previous century under the Hungarian colours, yet, despite this, the Jewish origin remains a taboo in sports.

Sándor Berzi concluded the lecture series by saying that the conference that attracted great media interest can be considered successful from several aspects, however, he had expected a greater interest from NB I and NB II clubs.