An honorary vice-president of Staffordshire Football Association has been suspended because of his links with the BNP.
Stan Leese had been threatened with expulsion from the county FA after standing as a BNP candidate in last month's local elections. The 75-year-old former football coach represented the far-right party in Stoke-on-Trent's Northwood and Birches Head ward, and lost by just 30 votes.
But his candidacy angered county football chiefs, who claimed his political views were at odds with the FA's equal rights and anti-racism policies.
Ahead of the election, Mr Leese, of Woodhead Road, Abbey Hulton, distributed campaign leaflets stating that he had been made an honorary life vice-president of Staffordshire FA for his services to local football over 60 years. This message was attached to a leaflet criticising Stoke-on-Trent City Council's tolerant attitude towards Muslim residents and warning that the city could become dominated by mosques and Muslim culture.
Staffordshire FA chief executive Brian Adshead had threatened Mr Leese with disciplinary action unless he quit the BNP or resigned from the FA before polling day.
But Mr Leese did neither, and appeared before the FA's board of directors on May 22. Following that meeting, the board suspended Mr Leese from the FA for three years. In a letter, board chairman Roger Street told Mr Leese: "The board do not believe you are in any way racist.
"They do, however, feel that your action in standing as a British National Party candidate in the local elections was not in the best interests of Staffordshire Football Association. The association seeks to promote equality in football and is against any form of discrimination. Because of this your membership of Staffordshire Football Association is suspended for three years with immediate effect."
Mr Leese is furious at the board's decision and may appeal.
He said: "I am absolutely disgusted because I don't feel I have done anything wrong. I have been involved in football for 61 years, more than 40 of them with the FA, working with people of all ages and races."
Mr Leese, who is also chairman of Abbey Hulton Community Association, said he only stood for the BNP because the party offered to do his canvassing while he recovered from a hip operation.
He said: "I have stood as an Independent a couple of times, but they wouldn't really help with my canvassing this time. Then BNP group leader Alby Walker approached me and said that if I stood for them they would handle everything. I don't regret standing for the BNP, and had I been elected I would have gone to the FA and asked for their advice on the situation. But as I wasn't voted in, I don't see what the problem is."
Mr Walker said the party is determined to fight Mr Leese's suspension on his behalf. He said: "We feel it is unfair of the FA to take this action just because of Stan's membership to a political party. We are going to ask them to explain their appeals process and are taking legal advice from BNP headquarters."
The Sentinel
June 09, 2008
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6 comments:
It should be reminded by anyone who complains about the role of supposed "nationalism" in football, that the BNP have a nasty habit of supporting all-white Scandinavian sides when they play against the England football team.
White Supremacism 2
True Nationalism 0
I've just found an interesting expose about Nick Griffin's fascist friend Fiore, from the internet.
http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=154768
Hope you can add this excellent story to your blog, please Ketlan and Denise. It says a whole lot more about this Italian nazi that many of us might not already know.
being able to cuddle up close to Fiore is the reason why Griffin is hoping to win a seat in the European parliament.
Glad racist Italy were giving a f*cking hiding at football today.
If Romania also beat Italy on Friday, after the racist violence against Roma and Romanian people, this would be natural justice, if there is such a thing.
THANKS HOLLAND FOR PISSING OFF FASCIST-LOVING MAFIA-CORRUPT MEGLOMANIAC SILVIO BERLUSCONI.
HOPE ITALIAN NATIONAL PRIDE IS SEVERELY DENTED TO BRING DISCONTMENT THAT WILL EVENTUALLY FALL IN ON BERLUSCONI HIMSELF!!!
http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=154768
Fiore: Istria, Rijeka and Dalmatia Are Italian
June 09, 2008
Croatian media have written abundantly about Roberto Fiore, a 49-year-old Italian politician, a former terrorist and convict who recently became a member of the European Parliament and is a father of ten. Apart from the Croatian public having learnt about his stances regarding cleaning the streets of Italy of prostitutes, his hatred towards emigrants, and especially his stance that the Romani in Italy should not be given state flats, it was denied a part of his political biography in which he fought against drugs, abortion and the neo-Fascist environment that is certainly interesting for the republics of the former Yugoslavia, especially Croatia.
Who is Roberto Fiore? Although the Forza Nuova (New Power) secretary wrote on his web site that-.--.-Roberto Fiore he had founded the Forza Nuova political movement on September 29, 1997 with Masimo Morsello, certain people who are well acquainted with the neo-Fascist movement in Italy believe that Francesco Mangiameli, Roberto Fiore and Gabriele Adinolfi founded in 1979 an organisation they named “Terza Posizione” (Third Position). On December 14 of that same year, Digos (Division of General Investigations and Special Operations) arrested three members of the organisation in the Roma headquarters, on whom large amounts of hand grenades were found. The police and members of the financial guard also confiscated stolen and forged documents, weapons and several types of explosives. After the incident, Fiore and Adinolfi left the organisation to be run by the extreme Giorgio Vale and the two, instead of being convicted and placed behind bars in September 1980, fled the country where they later founded various companies, including those dealing in tourism and the organisation of concerts. Among the founders was also Morsello, a singer and song writer, who claimed to be a Catholic and fascist. Allegedly the Italian extremist right wingers founded the Forza Nuova movement in London. It was a new fascist movement that found refuge in the racist British National Party. They even liaised with extremists in Lebanon where they visited paramilitary camps that were frequented by extreme Italian neo-Fascists and reporters (one of them is working for the ‘Il Giornale’ daily which is owned by Paolo Berlusconi, the brother of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi), who tried to undermine Croatia and Slovenia for years.
Not so long ago Fiore wrote that him and Morsello in 1997 founded Forza Nuova under the patronage of Arcangelo, that is, San Michel Arcangelo, the protector of the Iron Guard in Codrean, the leader of fascism in Rumania.
-.--.-Roberto FioreForza Nuova, whose members were captivated by fascist dictator Mussolini, was active in Italy in early 1999 in ten Italian regions, the most famous being Sicily, Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio and others, although they took part in several events even before that time. The following year new chapters were formed in the regions of Marche, Umbria, Friuli Venezia Giulia. In this region, with the seat being in Trieste where neo-irredentists and neo-fascists are in a state of flux, the Forza Nuova held its first organised actions in 1998, including manifestations against immigrants, bilingualism, for court proceedings against former Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito’s ‘infoibators’ (foiba victims) and especially against a Croatian partisan and anti-fascist, Oskar Piskulic, from Croatia’s city of Rijeka who was tried in Rome.
The members of Forza Nuova supported Austria’s right winger Jorg Haider who also came to Trieste to meet with right-wingers. In April 1999 a group of delegates that included Paolo Koratossidis and Riccardo Baggio from Padova and Luciano Fragasso from Vasto travelled to Belgrade in Yugoslavia vie Trieste where they were to meet the Chetnik leader and head of the Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj. But during NATO bombing they were stopped at the Serbian border and returned to Italy. So nobody in Italy is surprised that Fiore and his subordinates voiced their disagreement with Kosovo’s independence.
The Forza Nuove commander, as they call Fiore, had a big plan eight years ago to organise, along with his closest associates in London, a rally of the black international in Trieste. Italian and other media reported about this profusely. Many famous people voiced their disagreement with the rally, so the fascist march on Trieste was cancelled.
Fiore and Forza Nuova are famous for being the most extreme and loudest critics of Croatia and Slovenia (along with their allies from Fiamme Tricolore which Fini and his comrades left and founded Alleanza Nazionale), especially every February when the Remembrance Day on the exodus and victims of foibas is being marked. And while Fini and his post-fascists shout that Croatia’s Istria, Rijeka and Dalmatia would one day again be Italian, ‘comandante’ Fiore and Forza Nuova marked Remembrance Day this year under the motto: ‘Istria, Fiume e Dalmazia sempre solo Italia’ (Istria, Riejka and Dalmazia Always Only Italia). At football stadiums, especially in Trieste, they shout derogatory statements against Croatian and Slovene spectators, as well as against Italian spectators who do not share their fascist, military opinions.
http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=154768
Against Students with Metal Bars
After a round-table on crimes in Istrian foibas that was to take place in Rome this May was postponed, and at which Roberto Fiore was to speak, four members of the Forza Nuova party jumped out of their cars near the La Sapienza university on May 27 and attacked a group of students who had been putting up posters in protest of the round-table organised by the neo-fascists. They attacked the students with metal bars, wooden nightsticks and knives. Four students, two of whom were neo-fascists and two of whom were left-wingers, ended up in hospital with injuries and six were arrested.
Going to "take legal advice from BNP headquarters" dont make me laugh, what Lee Barnes knows about legal matters would fit on the back of a postage stamp.
tulip
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