Chelsea fans that are found guilty of being anti-Semitic may be sent on trips abroad to a Nazi concentration camp instead of imposing bans based on their behavior. “If you just ban people, you will never change their behaviour,” chairman Bruce Buck told a news publication.
The club, whom is owned by Jewish manager Roman Abramovic, started a “Say no to anti-Semitism scheme” back in January this year, providing one to one education courses to those responsible too.
Following a successful trip from June where Chelsea staff, stewards and fans headed over to Auschwitz in order to be educated on World War 2 and come to learn about the deaths of more than a million people killed there between 1940 and 1945, the scheme is undoubtedly providing a policy that gives those accountable the chance to realise what they have done, to make them want to behave better when attending matches.
It was initiated by the discovery of racist chants towards Alvaro Morata in a game against rivals Tottenham back in September of 2017, which emerged and spread on social media. Shortly after, this resulted in Chelsea publicly shaming their own fans for their disgusting behaviour. In addition to this, Chelsea has also produced a film to shed light on the abuse.
In hopes of substituting the racism, the club has introduced this in order to allow other teams that may be in the same circumstance, allowing funding for similar trips instead of simply banning those attending the Premier League club and matches.
The chairman finally added, “We want to convince other clubs to do their own things and make a real dent in what is still a problem.”