(Football news) Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the date on which the II LaLiga Week against Racism comes to an end. This initiative was launched in partnership with EA SPORTSTM and aimed to raise awareness of the importance of uniting to stop racism, both on and off the football pitch. Millions of people from all around the world have taken part in one way or another in this campaign, which is now in its second year.

Over the past seven days, numerous actions have been organised both on and off the pitch. As part of this, the players of all the clubs posed while wearing commemorative shirts created for the occasion, in front of banners with the word UNITY on them. Similarly, the captain’s armbands used this past week had the imagery of the initiative, as did LED screens, 3D carpets or even the virtualised image of UNITY that could be seen over the Camp Nou during the broadcast of ElClasico. 

At the stadiums, awareness-raising messages were played over the loudspeakers and shared on the video scoreboards. In addition, the clubs themselves have been using their channels to share various videos containing motivational messages from their players, encouraging the fans to get behind the initiative.

This campaign wasn’t limited to the real-life stadiums. The joint initiative from LaLiga and EA SPORTSTM also reached virtual settings as it was present in FIFA 23. There, players could select commemorative and awareness-raising kits for their teams to play in and will be able to do so for the rest of the season.

The #unityVSracism hashtag spreads across social media

There was also significant buzz on social media when it came to the II LaLiga Week against Racism and the UNITY campaign. This is evidenced by the fact that there were more than 13 million views of the initiative’s videos, while there were at least 33 million impressions globally from part of the content that was generated.

This project is simply the latest step in LaLiga’s efforts to stop racism. For several seasons now, LaLiga has been permanently working to identify and report any type of racist chant or possible hate crime that occurs inside or outside a professional football stadium and, in addition, LaLiga has been acting as a private prosecutor in the cases where it is legally possible to do so.

Furthermore, LaLiga has set up an email and Telegram channel where fans can get in touch and help facilitate the identification and reporting of those who engage in racist behavior. These channels are:

Email: StopRacismo@laliga.es  

Telegram: StopRacismoLaLiga 

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