Serious Crowd Trouble Should Result in On Field Punishment

By: Dan | August 24th, 2009

More words have probably been wasted on football hooliganism than any other subject having to do with the game. While some of these studies have been interesting work, the majority of writing on this subject, particularly the gleeful first hand accounts and the equally gleeful ‘field studies’ of many a thrill seeking sociologist, has been terrible. Just as terrible is the knee jerk reaction to any instance of crowd trouble which leaves the complainant sounding like the wretched offspring of John Calvin and Richard Nixon (and depending on the location of the incident, a dash of Colonel Blimp.)

There were, of course, two serious instances of crowd trouble during Europa League ties last week. Rioting Dinamo Bucharest fans forced the abandonment of the game against Slovan Liberec after the Czech side took a two goal lead in the 88th minute. In Prague, Red Star Belgrade fans decided to attack everything within their field of vision while they congregated before kick off.

Both incidents carried some immediate consequences. Dinamo Bucharest will learn their fate tomorrow before a UEFA committee; it is very likely that they will be expelled from this year’s competition, and the possibility of a further ban exists. In Prague, 150 Red Star fans were detained, although the number that ended up with formal charges shrunk to twelve. As the violence in the Czech Republic did not disrupt the actual match, the individual legal troubles of those who face criminal charges will have to suffice as a punishment.

Obviously these events were unfortunate. What is also unfortunate is the rapid placement of these events at the feet of Eastern Europeans (or Italians, or South Americans for that matter). It would be deliberately obtuse and factually incorrect to deny that Eastern Europe has had a problem with hooliganism in the twenty years since the end of communism, but, in my opinion, the focus placed on geography in hooliganism is not entirely appropriate. Hooliganism is nothing that jumps from one place to another. In theoretical terms, it is a universal problem. All the locality determines is the specific form that hooliganism will take. Therefore, preventative measures, from UEFA, should be in place. These preventative measures should then be supplemented by local governing bodies.

The specific factors of location, like the sociopolitical motives behind the hooliganism of a particular location, are necessary for a complete examination, but too often, we skip ahead to these local factors while ignoring the basic premise of football hooliganism. The ludicrous, blame shifting responses of governmental authorities, especially in the UK, in the past are partly to blame for the extreme focus on sociological factors. The view that football itself was somehow responsible for trouble was taken seriously for far too long. It was necessary and correct to point out that hooliganism was not occurring in a vacuum.

I think the universal factors behind hooliganism are, basically, as follows. If football is allowed by the authorities, civic, football administrative, or both to exist as a convenient theatre for violence, the culture of violence will establish itself and escalate. When the culture of violence establishes itself, it also reproduces itself. Once this happens, the atmosphere created by the violent fans becomes the normalized state of affairs. If regular, non-violent fans remain, they are to adhere to the conditions established by the violent fans. Italy is an excellent example of this set up. Take, for instance, the infamous 2004 Rome derby, which was abandoned by threat of violence from both Roma and Lazio ultras. The number of fans in attendance who simply wished to see a football game, one of the major world derbies at that, were, like the players and officials, powerless to intervene in a culture where the ultras have a wildly disproportionate amount of influence. The story, naturally, would be reported as something like ‘Italian fans force match abandonment.’ Besides having their football culture dictated by violence, the regular fans are now lumped into one nebulous category.

If we wish to contain the prospect of crowd trouble without waiting for every country on earth to eliminate the factors that cause their individual hooligan problems or resorting to a draconian vigilantism which encourages police to attempt to beat and batter hooliganism away, the punishment for hooligan incidents must come, first and foremost from football’s governing bodies. In the case of last week’s problems in Bucharest and Prague, Dinamo and Red Star Belgrade should both be expelled from this season’s Europa League, as Feyenoord were in 2006-07, with further punishment pending, based on any recurring history of offenses. Of course, this would have to be a universal standard. If the potential hooligans were aware that their violence, stupidity or any combination thereof would directly affect their club’s on field fortunes, the threat would probably be far direr than the threat of tear gas and baton charges.

The key to making expulsion/point deduction a universal punishment for serious hooligan incidents is the establishment of sensible universal standards. Punishing a club in that manner for an isolated fight or a single coin thrower would not only be stupid but counterproductive in combating hooliganism, as it would allow the hooligans to wrap themselves in the exuberant passion of other fans, and claim that gray bureaucrats are trying to stamp out something that makes football enjoyable and memorable for so many people.

One thing is clear. The status quo of hand wringing and after the fact, reactionary punishment is not working in terms of preventing trouble.