WARSAW, Poland — A fan-run soccer club launched a decade ago by Warsaw supporters disgusted with xenophobia and intimidation in Polish stadiums is deepening its community roots, even as the country’s president, who has publicly acknowledged his own street-fight involvement, represents a polar opposite strain of fan culture.
AKS Zły — the initials stand for Alternatywny Klub Sportowy Zły, or Alternative Sports Club Evil — was founded in 2015 by fans of the capital’s two main clubs, Legia and Polonia. The founders had grown alienated by the hostility they encountered in the stands and around stadiums. “We decided to create a club that would be different, where all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, race or nationality, could feel good and welcome,” Jan Dziubecki, a club coordinator, told The Associated Press. He noted that fan culture in Poland had “drifted sharply to the right and openly hateful slogans are common.”
The club continues to be owned and governed democratically by its members, and both its men’s and women’s teams compete in Polish leagues. At a recent women’s second‑division match, fans kept complaints about the referee to a polite minimum and sang songs of welcome to the visiting side.
President Karol Nawrocki, backed by the nationalist‑conservative Law and Justice party, was elected last year. A longtime fan of Lechia Gdańsk, Nawrocki did not deny reports during the campaign that he had taken part in a street brawl between soccer supporters; instead, he said he had been involved in many “noble” fights in his life. His presidency might bolster the type of fandom that AKS Zły was created to oppose, but Dziubecki suggested the contrast could also draw more fans to the alternative club.
Juliusz Wrzosek, the owner of the Offside bar in Warsaw’s Praga district, was among the founders. Once a supporter of Legia Warszawa, he was ejected from the club’s more radical section because he refused to sing chants glorifying imprisoned hooligans. Together with friends who were similarly marginalized, he set out to build something different. “Because you have to support someone,” Wrzosek said. His bar serves as a meeting place and occasionally hosts AKS Zły social events, including a March commemoration of Stefan Okrzeja, a socialist independence activist who fought in early‑20th‑century Poland.
The club’s explicit embrace of LGBTQ+ and immigrant players sets it apart in a sports environment where nationalist rhetoric often prevails. Former player Eliza Górska‑Tran, who continued with the club as a volunteer after her playing days, attended a recent women’s match with her wife and two young children. She recalled the moment when friends staged a wedding ceremony for the couple at the stadium after they had legally married in Scotland. “It’s not just empty words when you say that the fans are the 12th player,” Górska‑Tran said. “It really helps and motivates you to give more.” She also remembered her last match before becoming pregnant: “There were flares, including rainbow‑colored smoke, on the football pitch.”
Alicja Cichońska, in her seventh season with AKS Zły, said she joined the club because of its inclusive reputation. “Football should unite us all, not divide us, because there’s enough of that in society already,” she said.
The club fields men’s and women’s teams on equal resources, runs a youth academy where better‑off parents subsidize training for lower‑income children, and maintains a democratic governance structure. For its founders, it remains a direct answer to the exclusion they experienced.
“It bothered me that in Poland, a country with a great history of leftist and left‑wing values, there isn’t a single club that is democratic, that doesn’t impose its own version of fan culture,” Wrzosek said.