International Development Officer

Daniela Wurbs from Schrozberg / Hamburg St.Pauli, Germany...

... Couldn’t resist and had to come over from the continent in October 2007 to see whether English football and its fans really are as good as they all say.

For that she even had to leave her own club, the glorious FC St. Pauli from Hamburg, a club not necessarily known for their skilful play but for their famous and powerful anti-racist fanbase.

Daniela worked at the Fanladen St.Pauli (fan project) for several years lobbying for fans’ interests, organising and supporting projects as well as acting as an intermediary between fans and other organisations, such as the club and the police.

The main reason for her long-term football trip to England, however, is to look after the overall coordination of the Football Supporters International Network (FSI) which is currently carried out by the FSF. Most recently this included the organisation of the first ever European Fans’ Congress which took place at the Arsenal Emirates Stadium in July 2008.

The FSI was originally founded as an international union of organisations, providing fans’ embassy services for travelling national team supporters all over the world. Daniela got involved in the activities around FSI when she first started to work for the Coordinating Office of all fan projects in Germany (KOS) in 2003, which was a founding member of FSI, as was the FSF.

At the moment FSI is undergoing a big transformation into an international network for football fans and Dani’s job is to get them all moving together.

Some might even say it’s like herding cats...