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“No disciplinary authority”: Sports networker Bianca Jasmund

Football enthusiast Bianca Jasmund will be the contact person for problem cases in sport – funded by the state

From Peter Knechtli

After introducing the bonus/malus system to combat moral depravity on football pitches, the canton of Basel-Stadt is now going a step further: it is funding a contact point at the Northwestern Swiss Football Association, which aims to provide help and network against all forms of conflict in sport. The project is called “Zoffstopp” and Bianca Jasmund is the face behind it.

The biography of Bianca Jasmund from Therwil reveals it: she, like her family, is a football enthusiast. Within the Northwestern Switzerland Football Association, the mother of three children is head of the grassroots football department, but has also been head of the new Fair Play Commission since 2007. For three years, the 48-year-old has also been employed as a 40 percent secretarial employee for the association. On October 1, the association will increase her workload by ten percent, and the remaining 50 percent of her position – 45,000 francs – will be taken over by the Basel Department of Education.

Network, coordinate, help

Reason: Bianca Jasmund will shift the focus of her association work to her role as a contact point for all kinds of disputes in northwestern Swiss sport and to network, help and coordinate between all the players – players, officials, referees, parents and specialist departments. This is a “completely new measure” against violence on the football pitch, as the Education Department explained somewhat pompously at a media conference in the “Rankhof” sports center on Thursday morning: “ZoffStopp” is the name of the position.

Even if the task cannot yet be described in any substantial detail and the clearly noticeable effect of this contact point has yet to be seen, one thing is indeed true: the growing brutality and moral depravity, especially around the fields, and the “social significance of football” (according to Peter Knäbel, technical director of the Swiss Football Association and former FCB youth manager) have reached a level that sometimes hopelessly overwhelms the smaller clubs – often equipped with only a minimal structure.

It is worth remembering the brutal physical and verbal attacks against referees, players and among players that have taken place in the Basel region in recent years. The attack by B-Juniors of FC Türkgücü and a spectator against the referee in Aesch at the end of October 2006, which led to the game being abandoned and the police being called in, is just one example. Two current cases involving FC Genclik, which took place three and four weeks ago, are pending. A series of new regional football clubs have had to take action for “grossly unsportsmanlike conduct against the referee” and for “repeated complaints”.
against the referee”.

Hotheads were role models

Nevertheless, state representatives and football association officials agree: “Great improvements” have already been made in terms of incidents, fights and the formation of packs after matches. After discussions with association experts, the former junior hotheads of FC Türkgücü are now “as if converted” (according to the northwestern Swiss association president Roland Paolucci) in the top group for fair play.

Since the 2008/2009 football season, the state has been trying to use financial incentives to promote a culture around the pitch in a way that “makes football fun again,” as Education Director Christoph Eymann put it: Fair clubs that can demonstrate order on and off the pitch are rewarded with subsidies. The range of the state financial blessing – with a budget of 250,000 francs for 56 clubs of all youth sports – is between 23 and 50 francs per junior per year. The liberal department head also hinted, however, that he believes that increased training in social skills, including among referees, is appropriate.

Racism, drugs, sexual assault

But “money incentives alone are enough,” a project group led by sociologist Ueli Mäder (see box below) found. The causes of arguments in sport lie in the collegial or family environment, at work or in the form of exclusion. “This is about much more than just violence; here we have something down-to-earth, a person that those affected can turn to,” explained Peter Howald, head of the sports department. In addition to violence, other sources of arguments such as racism, drugs, sexual assault or doping should also be addressed beyond the usual means of repression. “The ZoffStopp prevention idea” is, however, “not a disciplinary authority.” Bianca Jasmund's task is also to “make us aware of gaps,” added Eymann.

Bianca Jasmund has a lot of work waiting for her.

24 September 2009

Example 12/13 September 2009

Sports violence in research