Belgium: Football flags

Last modified: 2009-06-06 by ivan sache
Keywords: football | banned flags |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors

• Royal Belgian Football Association
• Flags banned from football stadiums
• KV Mechelen
• RSC Anderlecht
• SV Waregem-Zulte

See also:

• Belgium

Royal Belgian Football Association

Flag of the Royal Belgian Football Association - Image by Ivan Sarajčić, 19 September 2007

The Royal Belgian Football Association (in Dutch, Belgian Koninklijke Belgische Voetbalbond; in French, Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association; in German, Königlicher Belgischer Fussball-Bund) has a bright blue flag with the association emblem in the middle.

The association shield-shaped emblem repeats the national colours, bears the French (URBSFA) and Dutch (KBVB) acronyms upon it in white and the year of foundation, 1895, in black, and is surmounted by a golden royal crown and flanked by golden laurels earned by Belgian football.

Source: Royal Belgian Football Association website

Jan Mertens, 19 September 2007

Flags banned from football stadiums

The Belgian football union has set up a zero-tolerance policy against racist posters, songs and flags. While such a policy can only be encouraged, it can sometimes be taunted by overzealousness.

The ExtraFoot website, 8 March 2009, reports that supporters of the UR Namur were asked by a steward to remove the provincial banner of arms of Namur from the stadium of Virton. The steward must have believed that the supporters, in a racist act, had "desecrated" the Flemish flag with a red stripe.
After a few words of explanation, the Namur lion was eventually allowed to stay in the stadium, which did not prevented Namur to be defeated by Virton (0-1) and to go down even closer to the Third League.

Ivan Sache, 27 March 2009