- Press releases
• South Tyroleans are European champion of the autochthonous, national minorities
• South Tyrolean women win the first European championship for women at the EUROPEADA
• The organiser FUEN and the South Tyrolean hosts draw a positive balance
South Tyrol, 25 June 2016
The team of the South Tyrolean is the European football champion of the autochthonous, national minorities. In a thrilling final match in the stadium of Sand in Taufers the team was able to win in the extra time with 2:1 against the strong Occitans. On Friday the South Tyrolean women had already won in a very exciting final match against the selection of the Occitans with 3:2 and as a consequence they won the first women championship at the EUROPEADA. The award ceremony, where the European champions received their trophies and all the teams received their medals, was attended by the South Tyrolean president Arno Kompatscher, the South Tyrolean minister and former FUEN vice president Martha Stocker and the South Tyrolean FUEN Ladin vice president and member of parliament Daniel Alfreider. “This EUROPEADA made a long-lasting positive impression. It was of a high sportive level and characterised by the mutual exchange between the minorities, to which also the hosts, the Ladin minority and the South Tyroleans, have strongly contributed”, said Loránt Vincze, the president of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), the largest umbrella organisation of the European minorities, taking stock of the third EUROPEADA. For the final day also FUEN president of honour, Hans Heinrich Hansen had travelled to South Tyrol.
The organiser of the European football championship is the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), which represents circa 100 organisations of the autochthonous, national minorities (www.fuen.org). The hosts of the EUROPEADA this year are the Ladin minority and the German-speaking South Tyroleans – their men’s team were the champions of the EUROPEADA in 2008 (organised at the Romansh in the canton Grisons in Switzerland) and 2012 (organised by the Sorbs in Upper Lusatia, in Germany).
A sportive surprise at the European football championship of the autochthonous, national minorities was the very strong performance of the women’s and men’s teams of the Occitans. The two selections, which carry the official name of “Occitània”, represent the Occitan language minority. The Occitan language is spoken across a large area in the south of France and reaches into the Spanish Val d’Aran and into a number of valleys in Piedmont in Italy.
Siegfried Stocker, the chairman of the South Tyrolean organising committee of the third European football championship of the autochthonous, national minorities was very pleased with the entire implementation of the EUROPEADA: “We have seen many inspiring games. Every day, the players lived up to the motto of the EUROPEADA, Diversity, Awareness, Respect. I would like to mention two examples: if you see how the Occitans are singing their anthem together and care for their language also in other ways, then that is impressive, in terms of the careful use of their minority language. Another example about the aspect of respect: we have seen a very competitive match between the Lusatian Sorbs and the Carinthian Slovenes, but after the match they shook hands and embraced each other. That is a sign of exemplary and respectful behaviour between the teams.
The cultural diversity that the minorities brought along with them to South Tyrol could be experienced during the EUROPEADA at the Culture Day in San Martin de Tor / St. Martin in Thurn, where every minority presented itself in an art-performance.
In the margins of the EUROPEADA there was a meeting of ten minority theatres from all over Europe that lasted three days. At this meeting contacts were enhanced, ideas for shared performances were born and the common theatre project VOX was presented. This project aims at supporting the theatres to develop modern drama and to have an exchange about production that deal with identity and language. The newly developed pieces will have to be translated into the minority languages of the other participants – such as Ladin, Sorbian, Welsh and German. The patron for the theatre project is the South Tyrolean FUEN vice president Daniel Alfreider.
More information about the EUROPEADA and photos are available at www.europeada.eu and at https://www.facebook.com/europeadatournament/.
