The 7th conference of Queer Football Fanclubs (QFF), held between September 3-5, 010 in Hamburg-St. Pauli pointed out that discrimination and homophobia still exist on the field, but that they will keep the attack rolling. About 70 members of the network of the gay and lesbian fanclubs had followed Queerpass St. Pauli's invitation to Hamburg to debate, discuss and, of course, to party. The event started Friday night with watching and celebrating the 1:0 victory of the German national team in Brussels against Belgium. On Saturday former president of FC St. Pauli Corny Littmann, openly gay, greeted the participants at the Schmidt theatre on the Reeperbahn. The focus of the conference afterwards was on internal work. A decision was made in favour of a financing concept based on membership fees as well as on the integration of the 21st fanclub into the European network.

A lot on focus the next panel discussion follows "Young, gay and football player. Does this go?" The manager of the Hamburg FA, Karsten Marschner, Matthias Kook (club- and amateur-related matters SV Werder Bremen), Dr. Thorsten Weidig (psychologist league team Hamburg Sports Club) and Marco Feldhusen (chief scout FC Saint Pauli) joined the discussion with the plenary members. They confirmed that the discrimination of homosexuals, so far, is rarely in the focus of trainee and trainer work. They promised to generate more awareness within their associations and to integrate the subject into their daily work more frequently.

The event was rounded off with a big party on Saturday evening and a brunch on Sunday at the fan communication center of FC Saint Pauli which was celebrating its 20th anniversary that weekend.

"QFF continues to grow and is becoming stronger and stronger with currently almost 900 members. Together with other fan groups, it is going to exert substantial pressure on clubs and associations, so that the discrimination of gays and lesbians has no chance in European stadia", QFF-spokesman Dirk Bruellau announced at the end of the conference.

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