Introduction Introduction to Part I
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Notes Introduction 1. European level refers to decisions taken by either the Council of Europe or the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). 2. Due to the use of knives and other weapons. 3. Although such violence occurs mainly at football matches, in several European countries it can also be found at basketball, volleyball, ice-hockey and water-polo matches. 4. On 29 May 1985, about one hour before the kick-off of the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus, a group of English fans charged towards Italian supporters. While seeking to retreat, the latter put pressure on a dilapidated wall, which collapsed on top of them, leaving 39 fans dead and more than 600 injured. 5. This controversy, which flared up following the publication in 1991 of a spe- cial issue of The Sociological Review, raged throughout the 1990s and still affects the debate to this day. 6. Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. 7. Belgium, France, Greece, Italy and the UK. 8. For example, the countries of Scandinavia. 9. In the event that an author’s work covers more than one period, he is mentioned in the period during which most work was produced. Introduction to Part I 1. Football hooliganism emerged in Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands in the early 1970s. By the end of the 1970s, it was also to be found in Germany, Greece and Spain. 2. This statement is not unproblematic. In fact, there is no way to define clearly what constitutes a ‘football-related incident’. Official statistics are often biased and in many countries vary considerably from one institution to another. Press coverage is unreliable; individual perceptions differ. Moreover, it is not easy to distinguish ‘minor’ football-related incidents from ‘serious’ ones. Nor is it possible to use the number of arrests as a reliable gauge because the figures can vary greatly depending on domestic, and even case-specific, law enforce- ment policies and practices. If one takes the number of people injured and/or the cost of material damage to be a more reliable gauge, then the incidents involving English football supporters during Euro 2000 were definitely minor. Yet they were presented as being serious enough to justify the introduction of more repressive legislation in the UK. On the other hand, the 2006 World Cup was presented as being an ‘incident-free’ tournament despite the fact that in their final statement the German authorities announced that there had been around 9,000 arrests in the course of the event. If, however, human 135 136 Football Hooliganism in Europe casualties and material damage are combined with other, more biased criteria (the frequency of reported incidents, the number of arrests, data from various official statistics, and so on) they do suggest that football hooliganism was on the rise during the 1970s and 1980s. The increasing seriousness of football- related incidents at international matches was demonstrated by, for example, the football riots that occurred in May 1974 during the Feyenoord–Tottenham match (where hundreds were injured) and those that broke out in September 1980 during the Castilla–West Ham match (where one person died). At the domestic level, rioting took place in January 1980 at the Swansea–Crystal Palace match (UK), resulting in the death of one supporter, in June 1981 at the Campobasso–Tirenni match (Italy) and in May 1982 at the Bayern–Nuremberg match (Germany), where over 100 were injured, while in April 1982, during the AZ Alkmaar 67–Feyenoord match (Netherlands), an explosive device was thrown on the pitch by a supporter. 1 Early academic theories 1. This term applies to any act of ritualized aggression effected at the symbolic level in accordance with a set of rules established, often implicitly, by each group of football hooligans. 2. Conceived as forming homocentric circles, these stages defined the status of football hooligans within their group; those concerned could only move on from one stage to another after successfully undergoing certain initiation rites. 3. In the 1990s, Scottish researchers nevertheless showed that relations between the early football supporters’ groups and officials at Scottish football clubs were much closer and open than in England, revealing the existence of a kind of participatory democracy similar to that described by Taylor, without, however, linking its disappearance to football hooliganism (Moorhouse 1994: 175–7, quoted by Taylor 2006: 102). 4. In the aftermath of the Heysel tragedy, English football clubs were banned from all European competitions by UEFA. The ban was lifted after five years. 2 A non-specific legal framework 1. See Introduction to Part I, note 1 above. 2. In the UK, for instance, the first official report on football hooliganism (the Lang Report) was published in 1969 and the second (Football Spectator Violence) in 1984. 3 Divergent policing styles 1. In the UK, electronic surveillance has been used in football stadia since the early 1970s (Taylor 1982a: 46; Armstrong and Giulianotti 1998: 121). 2. Inside grounds, segregation was ensured, on the one hand, through a pol- icy of controlling the sale of match tickets and, on the other, by means of a human wall of police officers or various types of physical barrier (railings, Notes 137 wire fencing, and so on) placed between the different sets of supporters as well as between the terraces and the pitch. Outside the grounds, segregation was ensured mainly by having a police presence along the route taken by the away team supporters to get to the stadium and by providing them with a police escort from their place of arrival in the town or city in question to the stadium and from the stadium to their place of departure. 3. Largely the desire of the Ministry of Sport, this initiative was taken following the success of the United Kingdom Football Liaison Group during the 1982 World Cup. The purpose of the network, which entered into operation in 1981 under the auspices of the Ministry of Sport, was to advise the football club managements and public authorities concerned whenever an English football club was participating in a European tournament. 4 The social construction of ‘otherness’ 1. My analysis encompasses the following newspapers: Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro, Le Journal du Dimanche (France); La Stampa, Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica (Italy); The Times, Guardian, The Observer (UK). 2. For practical reasons, the presentation of each point relies on a selection of quotations that are believed to be representative of its whole coverage. When, for technical reasons, the specific page numbers are not available, I cite the headline. 3. Though frequently observed, mutual reinforcement of public discourses and policies is not a necessary condition for successfully implementing public policies. For an analysis of a case in which public discourses and policies diverged, see Tsoukala (2008b). 4. ‘Soccer marches to war’; ‘Soccer is sick at the moment. Or, better, its crowds seem to have contracted some disease that causes them to break out in fury’ (Sun, 8 November 1965, quoted by Dunning et al., 1988: 150). 5. Quoted by Whannel 1979: 331. 6. Quoted by Wagg 1984: 212. 7. Statement by the Home Secretary. 8. Statement by the Home Secretary. 9. Quoted by Taylor 1982a: 52. 10. Quoted by Weir 1980: 319. Introduction to Part II 1. An influence attested to not only by the references made to the British works, which were much more numerous than the references made to other European works by British researchers, but also by the whole range of papers published in that period. In fact, apart from one Italian book, all the collective volumes published at that time which addressed the issue in several different countries were edited by British scholars. 2. An argument often used by many of the security professionals I interviewed. 3. This does not mean that academia should be actively involved in policy- making. Given the risk that, by doing so, scholars could easily be turned into the unwitting legitimators of social control policies, if not law enforcement 138 Football Hooliganism in Europe ‘auxiliaries’, whether or not to participate in policy-making and, if so, to what extent and at what level is a highly subjective matter and as such is neither defended nor discussed here. What is at stake is academia’s authority as a key definer of social problems and its ensuing ability to impose its definitions within the public sphere. 5 The vibrancy of the academic community 1. Such as sports fanaticism, the sporting significance and ups and downs of matches, flawed policing and the fact that leaders of the group may have incited others to take action. 2. The English model refers to loosely organized football supporters’ groups who show their support in the stadium by singing together. With violence being an integral part of their behaviour, the young men involved in football- related incidents can always count on the solidarity of other supporters, who will not hesitate to go to their aid if necessary. The Italian model refers to extremely well-organized football supporters’ groups who express their support in the stadium by putting on proper shows on the terraces (smoke grenades, flags, firecrackers, choreographed movements, and so on). Although regularly involved in violence, they do not accord it the same level of importance as their counterparts in Northern Europe do. 3. The notion of militancy is currently being used more and more frequently to describe the milieu of the football supporter without, however, subjecting it to any type of theoretical analysis. See, for instance, Mignon 1998: 231ff; Hourcade 2000: 124; Le Noé 1998: 59. 4. For an in-depth study of this thesis, see the many articles that appeared between 1975 and 1997 in the journal Quel corps? 5.