Caused by Zainichi discrimination 11 years ago? Urawa Demolishes Refugee Team's Hanging Rule → Controversy over Racism
Mar 04, 2025
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The incident occurred at Saitama Stadium, where the Urawa-Kashiwa match was held on the 2nd.
FC Kurd players and officials from Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, visited the stadium to watch the game. FC Kurd is a team of Kurdish refugees who are ethnic minorities in Turkiye.
They tried to hang a green club hanger called 'FC Kurd' written in Katagana, but were restrained by Urawa officials, the home team. Then "It's discrimination against the Kurds!", "It's racism!" Shouting his back made noise around him. Urawa's embarrassed side recommended changing seats, but they refused to watch and left.
A Urawa official told the Sankei Shimbun that the Kurds are responding equally to the ban, not to the reasons. Urawa requires both home and away fans to obtain prior approval for the installation and use of hangers and flags in the stadium. The removal of the hanger of FC Kurd was disallowed because it was 'unapproved'.
Cloths and flags in stadiums are commonly used in most of the world. If it contains political messages or inappropriate content, it is restricted or removed from the preliminary entry level inspection. Few places require the club to have prior permission before a game.
Despite this, there is a reason why Urawa has no choice but to implement the pre-authorization process.
Eleven years ago, in 2014, Urawa was forced to withdraw from the match without spectators because of a supporter's hanger. It was the beginning of the controversy of racism that some supporters hung a banner with the Rising Sun Flag and 'JAPANES ONLY' at the entrance of the stands.
At the time, the supporter hanging the banner insisted that `behind the goal is a space and sacred place for the most ardent supporters, but foreigners who have not been controlled to cheer walked in and out.' However, the prevailing opinion was that it was due to a sense of discrimination against Lee Tadanari (Lee Chung-sung), a naturalized Korean-Japanese player who belonged to Urawa at the time. Tomoaki Makino, the Urawa captain and former player of the Japanese national team, posted on social media, `This is not it. He even burst into tears, saying, 'Players and supporters cannot be united and cannot produce results if they do this.'
In the end, the J-League Secretariat fined Urawa 5 million yen, disciplined him without spectators for one league game, and banned the use of hangers. Club executives were handed back 20% of their salaries for three months due to their own disciplinary action, and 11 supporters groups were dissolved. In addition, it has been caught in the crossfire in various sectors of Japan, calling it `shameful behavior.'
Urawa is a club whose supporters group is known for its roughness in the J-League. Even after the incident 11 years ago, some groups are known to have succeeded in rebuilding and are still working, and there are still large and small cases. From the club's point of view, which was not easy to control them, in the end, they had no choice but to create the clearest and toughest measure, 'self-rule'.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
