Brief History of Fans' Embassies

The fans’ embassy concept can be traced back to services provided for supporters of the England and Germany teams at the World Cup of 1990 in Italy, and which evolved through subsequent years at tournaments such as Euro 1992 in Sweden, Euro 96 in England, the World Cup 1998 in France, Euro 2000 in Holland and Belgium, and the World Cup 2002 in Japan and South Korea.

On the English side, the fans’ embassy service began as a lobbying and self-help initiative taken by the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA), a membership-based campaigning body made up of ordinary football supporters and completely independent of both football and governmental authorities.

The German fans’ embassies were provided by trained social workers engaged at various club-based fan projects, primarily involved in work among problem supporter groups and seconded temporarily to work among fans travelling with the national team.

It is significant and interesting to note that despite the very different starting points of the people involved from the two countries, the parallel development of the fans’ embassy services each provided resulted in remarkably similar working practices. This commonality of experiences and conclusions about methodology shared by the two longest-standing and most successful practitioners in the field allows us to speak with some authority about a tried and tested best practice model.

The fans’ embassy services provided at Italia 90, Sweden 1992 and later at France 1998 were primarily organised and financed by the above organisations themselves without significant support from the host countries, and operated exclusively among their own supporter groups.

In England at Euro 1996, with limited commercial and government support, the FSA provided for the first time a fans’ embassy service in each of the host cities, aimed at visiting supporters from all countries. At Euro 2000, the Dutch and Belgian governments further developed this concept, and dedicated significant resources to it, additionally financing fans’ embassy volunteers from each of the competing nations to work among their respective supporter groups.

At both Euro 96 and Euro 2000, the fans’ embassy service provided by the hosts in the venue cities was complemented by mobile fans’ embassy services by those countries – primarily Germany and England – which had a tradition of providing these services. These embassies for particular fan groups dovetailed very well with the hosts’ fans’ embassy structures, and the combination of the two provided the optimum service to supporters.