http://www.fanseurope.org/en/fans-congress/effc-2013-registration.html

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Is the notorious "modern football" a safe and secure event? Is it a threat to 
fan culture(s)? Is it really a welcoming place for all people? What are you 
willing to pay for a ticket to watch your team play in the stadium these days? 
Would football need billionaire investors if fans were more involved in running 
their clubs? Are you ready to follow your national team play a European 
Championship Tournament all over Europe?

In times of economical crisis, football clubs need their supporters more than 
ever. The loyalty of fans to their clubs is what regular businesses would be 
longing to have and satisfy as a customer base. 

In football, however, measures like bubble matches, intimate body searches upon 
entry, kombi tickets, fan ID cards, new regulation and legislation aiming to 
tackle an alleged comeback of hooliganism, ever increasing ticket prices, 
fierce sanctions for fan banners meant to celebrate rivalries.. When your 
chocolate bar or change is seen firstly as missile, when media or political 
shit storms target fans collectively as a problem for the actions of a tiny 
minority, when they equal ultras with hooligans, equal pyro with violence - 
then resultant restrictions posed to fans sometimes reach levels suggesting 
that watching football automatically makes you a potentially dangerous person.

Likewise, racism and violence on and off the pitch committed by a small 
minority but resulting in police repression for all fans, particularly at away 
matches, or match-fixing, corruption or economic exploitation of clubs via 
billionaire investors do the rest to making some fan think sometimes, others 
more and more often: 

How far can loyalty of supporters go and at what cost?

What can we all do together, to tackle the problems that there are and (re)vive 
the stands?

We want to discuss these questions at our 6th European Football Fans' Congress 
(EFFC) around Frietjes, Graachten and.naturally the Coffee Shops and the 
Amsterdam Arena, home to the fans of Ajax Amsterdam and - very often - also to 
the Dutch national team supporters who are both co-hosts of this year's EFFC! 
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