Czech MMA organization cancels plans for cage match between Romani and Ukrainian fighters
The RedFace organization had been planning to hold a two-on-two MMA cage match in Prague between Romani and Ukrainian fighters. The match was scheduled for this coming Saturday at a time when there are efforts underway to reduce tensions between Roma and Ukrainians in Czech society.
The organization has been given the feedback that its plans seem to be an attempt to exploit current tensions between these two minorities in Czech society. After institutions of the state and the public criticized the idea, organizers decided to cancel the match.
RedFace is infamous for its attempts to hold bizarre, controversial events called “slap fights”, where two contestants slap each other’s faces. The Czech National Agency for Sports has banned those.
RedFace had planned the cage fight match between Roma and Ukrainian teams for 9 September in Prague. Its advertisements called for people to come watch a contest “with no rules” that would be “better than street fighting”.
The organization’s plan sparked sharp criticism, both from institutions of the state and from the public. The Czech National Agency for Sports called it “absolutely incomprehensible” and Czech Interior Minister Vít Rakušan called it in “poor taste”.
“The popularity of martial arts is a matter of personal taste, but to promote them with the rhetoric of war is not just in poor taste, but dangerous,” the Interior Minister told Seznam Zprávy. The biggest Czech-Slovak organization holding martial arts tournaments in the Czech Republic, Oktagon MMA, also responded to RedFace’s activities.
“Oktagon MMA will not collaborate with anybody who cooperates with the so-called RedFace organization,” Ondřej Novotný of Oktagon said. Police have also been following these events.
“It is evident that the organizers were betting on interest in the current problem after several incidents during which Romani people and Ukrainians were brawling in public. We are monitoring all of these events, most of the time such street battles are convened through social media,” a detective who specializes in extremism and violence was quoted as saying by the daily Mladá fronta DNES.
Keeping societal tensions alive in this way was also condemned by Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková and the director of the Romodrom organization, Nikola Taragoš. “I’m a peace-loving person. If somebody presents something in this light, it certainly will not get any positive response from society. In my opinion this is a cheap shot at publicity,” Fuková said.
“This seems quite negative to me. No sport should have to deal with such stuff. Generally I have nothing against Romani people or anybody else competing in a fair game of any kind of sport. Nevertheless, if it’s being connected with what has been going on like this, then that is so unfortunate as to be unacceptable to me,” Taragoš told the news server Seznam Zprávy.
RedFace subsequently announced it has cancelled that particular match and left the other parts of its program in place. “After careful consideration we have decided to cancel the planned match of Roma versus Ukrainians. Our aim is to support and spread our passion for martial arts among our fans. We never wanted to spark any emotions other than those associated with the pleasure and excitement of these sports,” the organizers said in a statement.
Petr Diviš, the owner and promoter of RedFace, then added that he is praying for calm and peace in both communities here.
