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Interview with Anders Larsen

Anders Larsen is one of the leading lights of the FC Copenhagen Fan Club, and spearheaded work on the "Fair Fans" scheme which took joint first prize in this year's Young Active Citizens' Award.

Interview (07.11.2004)

Question: Tell us more about your project.

Anders Larsen: The project "Fair Fans" ran for a season throughout the 12 premier football league clubs of Denmark. We became very concerned with the way the media portrayed football fans - concentrating on the hooligans and the violence. Yet 99 per cent of supporters are not like that. This prompted us to start the 'Fair fans' project bringing together about 35,000 fans who followed the game to create a new concept based on fair play both off the pitch and on.

Question: How did you get your anti-violence message out to the fans?

Anders Larsen: We printed tee shirts and pamphlets and began an awareness raising campaign to really fire people's imagination. We had a message to the press and to the public: Danish national football is not about violence, but about fair play! We networked so that we involved players, fans, security and police. We got the players to come onto the pitch before a match with a huge shirt - six metres by six metres - so everyone would recognise our logo and our message. We designed a 12 metre banner that said " Fair play on the pitch; fair play on the stands".

Question: Do you feel the campaign has been a success?

Anders Larsen: It worked because it was a partnerhsip between the players and the fans. We got the players to hand out our pamphlets - and that meant a lot more to the fans than if we had done it on our own! The message really got through if they felt their favourite players were backing it. I knew that our message was getting over the day I saw two supporters involved in some friendly banter. A passer by saw them and shouted " Come on, be "fair fans", let's have no fighting!"