The CSD reactivates the Observatory of Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport

• The Higher Sports Council (CSD) has reactivated this consultative body on Wednesday, which is joined by renowned personalities in the field of Human Rights and the fight against hate speech.

Madrid, November 26, 2025.- The Higher Sports Council (CSD) has reactivated this Wednesday the Observatory of Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport, a fundamentally consultative body that is strengthened in this new stage with the incorporation of renowned personalities in the field of Human Rights and the fight against hate speech.

The reactivation of this Observatory is a decisive step within the commitment of the CSD to eradicate any form of violence or discrimination in sport, an issue that Spain introduced in the European Union Work Plan in the field of sports for the period 2024-2027 after a proliferation of such incidents has been detected in the countries around us.

The working space of the Observatory will focus its efforts on the study and proposal of possible improvements of Law 19/2007, which is about to turn twenty years old and which constitutes the essential regulatory framework to face these behaviors in the sports field.

The Observatory will act in a complementary way to the work already carried out in the Anti-Violence Commission, which meets fortnightly to assess files and propose sanctions; the monitoring carried out by OBERAXE; and the working group for the “Fight against hate speech in sport”, created within the European Commission and chaired by the CSD itself.

With the reactivation of this Observatory, the Higher Sports Council reinforces its strategic line of protection of the values of sport and guarantee of safe, inclusive and respectful environments for athletes, hobbies, entities and competitions throughout the country, an issue that Spain already placed at the center of the debate during the presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2023.

Members of the Observatory

The Observatory on Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport is chaired by the Director-General of Sports, Fernando Molinero, and the Higher Sports Council itself, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Equality are represented as members.

In addition, members of this Observatory are the director of OBERAXE, Tomás Fernández; the Secretary General of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Álvaro de Miguel, and the representative of the referee collective of this federative entity, Marta Frías; the Director of Public Affairs and Institutional Relations of LaLiga, José Antonio Montero; the President of the Association of Spanish Footballers (AFE), David Aganzo; the President of the Spanish Association of the Sports Press, Jesús Álvarez; and the President of the Juan Angel Andez.

The general secretary of the Spanish Federation of Underwater Activities, Cristina Lara, and the head of the Women and Sport Area of the Royal Spanish Hockey Federation, Sonsoles Monfort, are part of the Observatory on behalf of the sports federations in which there is no professional league, while the mayor of Torrejón de Ardoz, Alejandro Navarro, is the representative of the association of Spanish local entities with the greatest presence in the state.

During the meeting, the work carried out by the previous members of the Observatory was thanked and the commitment of the current members to continue moving forward in the strategic lines undertaken in previous years has been ratified.

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