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WARSAW: Police launched a probe here Friday over a “Jihad” banner displayed by fans of Polish club Legia Warsaw during a Europa League match against Israeli side Hapoel Tel Aviv.
“We are investigating. We are due to meet with the match organisers and club representatives,” said Warsaw police spokesman Maciej Karczynski.
No-one had so far filed a formal legal complaint, he told Poland's PAP news agency, which said officers were seeking to establish whether displaying the banner was criminal.
At the start of Thursday night's Group C home game in Warsaw -- which Legia won 3-2 -- a group of fans unfurled a huge banner across three blocks of a stand.
Written in Arabic-style letters, it read “Jihad Legia”.
The slogan was used in the past when hardline Legia's fans were locked in a bitter conflict with the club's owners, but campaigners said the meaning was all too clear at a game involving an Israeli team.
“This is yet another case of anti-Semitic behaviour by extremist groups active in Polish football stadiums, and it could have been predicted,” Rafal Pankowski of the Warsaw-based campaign group Never Again told AFP.
“Some Legia fans have been known for anti-Semitic and extreme-right behaviour for years and they had a chance to express their hatred of Jews again when Legia played an Israeli team, this time adopting a pseudo-Islamist guise,”said Pankowski, who also runs a regional monitoring unit for the UEFA-backed Football Against Racism in Europe network.
Miroslaw Starczewski, deputy head of security at Poland's PZPN football association, said Legia could be hit hard by UEFA, European football's governing body.
Under its disciplinary rules, UEFA could levy a fine of up to one million euros ($1.3 million).
“Legia should pay the price for this. A fine is the most likely penalty. And UEFA may even ban Legia fans from the second leg in Tel Aviv,” Starczewski told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
Legia's away game in the Israeli city is scheduled for December 15.
Club spokesman Michal Kocieba said Legia were also investigating.
“We certainly didn't approve the display of this banner,” he said.
Stadium racism and hooliganism are in sharp focus in Poland ahead of the 2012 European Championships, which the country will host along with neighbouring Ukraine.
Far-right and anti-Semitic banners and slogans are notably shocking given the region's World War II history, when millions perished at the hands of occupying Nazi Germany, including the overwhelming majority of its Jews.
