Fans' Human Rights Guide

Authors - Centre for Sport and Human Rights, Football Supporters Europe

Fans encourage their teams forward to sporting success, while creating and maintaining a vibrant culture through and around their support.

Like all people associated with sport, the human rights of fans should be upheld, and governments and institutions across the sports ecosystem, such as event organising committees, have responsibilities to protect and respect them. Promoting human rights is a job for everyone, and fans themselves also have responsibilities. Fans have a strong platform to contribute to sport being a safe place and force for good and should know their rights. Fans also play a critical role in raising expectations across sport to ensure sporting events are welcoming and inclusive, and avoid causing harm to workers, residents, players, or others in and around an event.

This checklist, developed by Football Supporters Europe (FSE) and the Centre for Sport and Human Rights (CSHR), has been produced to raise awareness of some of the human rights aspects connected with attending an international sporting event from a fan perspective. The intent of this document, which builds on the guide Games Time - Planning and Acting to Respect Human Rights in Mega-Sporting Events, is to contribute to actions that ensure both fans and organisers are prepared for a safe and positive experience that upholds personal dignity and promotes once in a life-time experiences that sport can offer.

This is an initial version to be further developed in consultation with fan groups and other stakeholders and will be revised based on learnings from fan experience at future sporting events.

Please contact the Centre if you have any accessibility issues and require a plain text version of the guide.