Watford have launched their own campaign in partnership with Hertfordshire Police to combat discrimination and prejudiced behaviour.
With racism in particular becoming an ever-increasing issue in football, the club have taken their own stand so they are not reliant on independent campaigning voices to do the reporting of such crimes for them.
Several players in Watford’s first-team squad were subjected to alleged racist abuse following their FA Cup semi-final over Wolves in April, including captain Troy Deeney, and those events were a factor in the club launching such a campaign.
Crucially, however, the scheme is aimed to protect everyone connected with Watford - players, ex-players, staff, fans, the local community - and people are urged to to call out offenders using the hashtags #Watford or #BuzzOff on social media.
Working alongside Hertfordshire Police’s Hate Crime Unit, Watford’s ‘We’ Campaign will aim to impact prosecutions by swiftly bringing any offenders to justice quickly.
The club are using the scheme to combat all forms of discrimination, with crimes against age, disability, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion and belief, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity all being monitored.
Watford have not launched the campaign due to frustrations with current anti-discrimination programmes, such as Kick It Out, and they will still continue to work with such bodies.
Instead the initiative has been setup so the club is not reliant on others and they now have their own system to tackle hate crime. By being able to monitor such incidents themselves, the hope is Watford will be able to provide more evidence, more quickly, to assist police in their work.
“The message is clear: Watford welcomes everyone and is a safe place to live and visit,” said Sgt Luke Mitchell below, Herts Police’s Hate Crime team leader.
“We want people to enjoy watching football and visit our town knowing that it is a safe and friendly environment, where hate crime in all its forms – race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity – is not tolerated. Everyone, from the playing staff to police, stands united against hate crime.
