Politics in football stadiums? A devastating opinion of Polish women and men
The Lithuania-Poland football match and its sports result remained in the shadow of the fans’ attack on Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Is the stadium a place for politics?
Keeping all proportions in mind, the situation with offensive shouts and slogans on banners directed at Prime Minister Donald Tusk, present in Kaunas, became famous. We reported on these incidents already during the 2026 World Cup qualifying match, in which Lithuania ultimately lost to Poland 0:2.
A football stadium a political arena? Devastating survey results!
“You are not, you were not, you will not be a fan of the Polish national team” – one of the banners could be read in the fans (hooligans?) sector of the national team. In addition to the slogan, there was a likeness of Prime Minister Tusk, modified to resemble… the likeness of Adolf Hitler.
Interestingly, the banner appeared during the match in Kaunas, hanging on the flag of Lechia Gdańsk. That is, the club with which both Prime Minister Tusk and the President of Poland Karol Nawrocki are associated regionally and as supporters.
Therefore, we asked Polish women and men a question related to this type of message, which is also political in nature, at football stadiums. Matches of the Polish national team are the largest stage of this type and the loudest message, but various slogans also appear many times in the league, e.g. PKO BP Ekstraklasa.
Commissioned by “Wprost”, the SW Research agency conducted a study in which the following question was asked: Should the stands of football stadiums be a place for all kinds of political actions?
The results leave no doubt. Only 26 percent of those asked answered: Yes, fans have the right to do so. “No, this should not happen” – this answer was chosen by as many as 63.6 percent. participating in the study. The percentage of people who chose the “I have no opinion” version is admittedly very small – only 10.4%.
The study was carried out on October 14-15, 2025 by SW Research agency by online interviews on the SW Panel online panel. As part of the study, 824 interviews were conducted with a representative sample of Polish women and men over 18 years of age in terms of the total distribution of gender, age and town size.
