A two-day workshop was held in Madrid on 18-19 January in order to design the future Strategy for Combating Hate Speech in Sport and the Action Plan for Spain 2024 – 2026, discuss the potential funding mechanism, and plan for the development of the #Sport IS Respect campaign.

Organised with the instrumental support of the National coordinator of the Project on Combating hate speech, Raúl Rodriguez Porras, Deputy Director of the Legal Department of the High Council for Sports, the first day of the workshop was hosted by the High Council for Sports, Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports. Representatives of the Spanish Observatory of Racism and Xenophobia, the State Attorney General's Office, the Prosecutor's Office for Hate Crimes and Discrimination, the National Police, the Ministries of Interior, Equality, Justice and Education, Vocational Training and Sports, the Association of Basketball Clubs ACB, Association for Spanish Sport ADESP, the Iberian LGTBI Sports Association, LALIGA, the Royal Spanish Basketball Federation, the Spanish Paralympic Committee advanced in defining the objectives, their proposals for actions for the development of the strategy and #Sport IS Respect campaign.

The second day was hosted by LALIGA: The initiative LALIGA VS, the international and compliance programmes were presented, with activities for football fans focused on three pillars: education, prevention and action. Different international initiatives and campaign visuals were reviewed with the aim to designing a joint campaign to raise awareness about the collective responsibility in combating hate speech in sport. Aauri Bokesa Abia, #Sport IS Respect Ambassador, enriched the discussions with her experience and brought in the perspective of a performing athlete.

The rich exchanges between the participants complemented by the contribution of international experts led to agreeing on the strategy conceptual framework and key aspects of a successful campaign, and setting up a tentative work plan for the next phase in Spain.

The "Combating Hate Speech in Sport" joint project is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.