Putting racism offside. An evaluation of the case law of the Royal Belgian Football Association’s National Chamber for the fight against discrimination and racism

Abstract

This thesis researches the functioning of the National Chamber against Racism and Discrimination (NCDR or Chamber), which is a global first of its kind. It aims to tackle the issue of racist speech in football, a major challenge that football faces today. First, the frameworks regarding racist speech are examined, both the ones designed for football and nonfootball contexts. Second, the case law of the NCDR is analyzed, addressing trends and things that stand out. Then, this analysis is put in light of the discovered frameworks, to evaluate the functioning of the Chamber. The result is that the NCDR does a very good job overall in respecting its regulations, both literally and in their spirit. However, there is some room for improvement. This is further addressed in the last chapter, which contains some proposals on how the Chamber can achieve this enhancement.