The following video and story produced by the Football's Hidden Story project feature Valeriu Nicolae, executive director of the European Roma Grassroots Organisation and a consultant for the Open Society Institute. Since 2006, Nicolae has led the "Racism Breaks the Game" campaign, an initiative under the Decade of Roma Inclusion that approaches the issue of racism through sports. Because football is the most popular game in Europe, associating anti-racist messages with football offers a way to reach a wide audience and achieve a significant impact. For more information about "Racism Breaks the Game," see the October 2007 campaign report attached at right.

"One Game, One Family: Romania's Footballing Gypsies Fight Racism"

Sitting in his flat, in a humdrum suburb of Bucharest, the quiet voice of Valeriu Nicolae is almost drowned out by the noise of the traffic outside. But the story he has to tell has a loud and powerful impact, nonetheless.

“I'm a gypsy. When I was at high school here in Romania I had a racist pig of a teacher. You think that's an exaggeration? I had just ben playing basketball so I was sweaty and this guy made me stand in the front of the entire class and he said to everyone: 'Come and smell what a stinking gypsy smells like.'”

The shaven headed, 37-year-old campaigner allows himself a sad smile.

“As a Roma, I am used to this. When I was seven years old, we moved somewhere different and I didn't even know the word gypsy. But then I got the first prize at my new school and everyone was jealous: they turned on me and called me ‘smelly gypsy’ or ‘dirty crow’. They crapped in front of our door and then wrote 'stinky gypsies' on it!"

Many of the estimated one and a half million Roma in Romania (and at least two million who have Roma roots) can tell plenty of similar stories. Anti-gypsy prejudice is a problem right across Eastern Europe.

The difference with Valeriu's situation is that he is highly intelligent, quietly self confident, and possessed of a definite moral authority: and he is also, as he puts it, "a gypsy who won't shut up," especially when he feels he is being discriminated against.

When he was 24, he went to Britain to learn English. He was so poor he could barely afford to eat but he loved the freedom and tolerance of London. From there it was a shorter step to Loyola University in Chicago, where he met the great thinker, Edward Said.

Valeriu tucks his feet under himself. He looks rather like Mahatma Ghandi. The shelves behind him are stacked with very serious texts. Most of them in English.

“The last acceptable discrimination in Europe”

“Said told me that anti-gypsy prejudice is the last acceptable discrimination in Europe. Because we Roma do not have a country, we have no one to stand up for us, like the way Hungary defends the Hungarian minority here in Romania. We Roma have been sold and bought like cattle for five hundred years. Our language is still repressed.”

His eyes are alive with determination. It's no surprise that to learn that when Valeriu came back to Romania, after working in the USA, Canada, Malta and Belgium, he chose to fight prejudice against his people. What is maybe surprising is that he also chose to do this through football.

“It all started when I took some photos at a match between Dinamo Bucharest and Rapid, a few years ago. There was a 60-metre-wide banner, raised by 2,000 people, and it said ‘Die Gypsies’. Can you imagine that? Over 2,000 people holding a banner saying: ‘Die Gypsies’?”

Most editors would kill for such an incendiary story. Yet not one Romanian newspaper would publish Valeriu's pictures. Editors were equally disinterested in Valeriu's eye-witness reports of the racism at the game: the horrible chants like ‘death to crows’, ‘gas all the gypsies’, etc.

Valeriu sighs. “The editors were outraged, but not by the racism. They seemed insulted by my report. They said: ‘This cannot be right, we Romanians are kind people. We are not racists.’”

Stymied by this denial, Valeriu took his case further afield. In 2004 he was invited to a conference by the European Commission and UEFA, where he did a presentation on anti-Roma racism in Romanian football. UEFA were shocked, and invited Valeriu to attend the kick-off at a very important game, a Champions League face-off between Arsenal and Bayern Munich. Valeriu was advised to wear a suit: he turned up in great big sweatshirt with Stop Racism stamped across the front.

He was getting more attention. But things came to a real head when he went to a Steaua Bucharest match in 2005.

“Monkey chants, more anti-gypsy stuff”

“I heard all these monkey chants, more anti-gypsy stuff. So I made a report to UEFA and it finally threw the fat on the fire. Steaua got a huge fine from the European authorities, and their pitch was suspended for racism, which is almost unheard of.”

Valeriu himself suffered serious backlash from the UEFA action. The Bucharest press called him Enemy Number 1. He was labelled a traitor, some claimed that he had destroyed the country's image. He got thousands of death threats, he got emails saying ‘Antonescu [a Romanian Nazi leader] should have gassed you all’.

Even though he still gets threats today, "two or three a week," he says, Valeriu was able to withstand the backlash. What got him through the worst was the knowledge that he was actually making a real difference.

“To be honest,” he continues, “I thought it would take at least a year for the situation to change and improve, for people to open their eyes. But happily I was wrong. I went to see a Steaua versus Rapid match the very next month and, suddenly, it was all different. The chants started again and this time the press heard them! It was like they had been in denial but I had forced them to accept reality. Now the racism was visible and audible and there was a big reaction - we got newspaper reports, TV coverage, the lot.”

“This opened up the entire question to the football federation, soon after that, the government got involved, ministers came to see us. We had made the issue come alive.”

It's a powerful and affirmative tale, but Valeriu is not content with talking about it: he wants to show us his group, the European Roma Grassroots Organisation and Open Society Institute, at work. Today they have arranged for a pro-celebrity football match involving Roma and other minorities, on the outskirts of town. We all jump in a little car and drive through the dilapidated streets of Bucharest to a noisy if ramshackle sports stadium, besieged by TV crews and journalists, ministers and officials, and lots of excited kids, many of them Roma.

The kerfuffle is especially intense when Banel Nicolita takes the pitch. He's a gypsy and a genuine soccer star, a winger for Steaua Bucharest and the Romanian national squad. When Banel appears in the indoor arena, the noise reaches a crescendo. Along with the efforts of people like Valeriu, it is the very visible success of people like Banel which is changing attitudes to Roma in Romania. As others can confirm.

“I see glances, people hide their bags…..”

Mihai Neascu, is a 30-year old Roma community leader. He says: “Not all Romanians are racist. Some are racist some of the time. But if I get on a bus, yes, it does happen. I see glances, people hide their bags and stuff. But through football we are really changing this. Because football is on TV, because it is the national game, it is very influential - if you can change attitudes there you can them everywhere. When people learn that you can't call me a dirty crow or gypsy scum at a soccer ground because that hate speech is outlawed by football, then that new thinking spreads to the rest of society.”

But maybe the last word should to go Valeriu. You have a feeling it would go to him anyway.

“We still have a long way to go,” he says, as he watches the kids mob the smiling figure of Banel. “The other day I had a brick chucked through my car window. Because I am a gypsy, no other reason. And yet - I am optimistic. Believe it or not we have come such a long way already. I think it just goes to show, one man can really make a difference. Just as long as you don't shut up.”

- Reproduced with the permission of Football's Hidden Story