 "Violence at Argentina-Brazil match: Is football hooliganism on the rise?")
A brawl between fans of Argentina and Brazil has yet again shone the problem on a familiar problem in football – hooliganism. The 2026 World Cup qualifier, which Argentina won 1-0, had to be delayed for around 30 minutes when rival fans started throwing punches before kick-off. Police fought back the melee with batons, leaving some fans with bloodied faces and other injuries. Brazil’s football fan clubs association, ANATORG, said government authorities and the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) were “negligent” in seating rival fans next to each other at Tuesday’s epic clash in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana stadium, with no barriers separating them. “The negligence and incompetence of the CBF and security officials resulted in the brawl,” said ANATORG, which had issued a statement Monday warning of the risk of violence, given the mixed seating plan. “This was a tragedy foretold,” it said. FIFA president Gianni Infantino meanwhile said there is “absolutely no place for violence in football.” “Players, fans, staff and officials have to be safe and secure,” he wrote on Instagram. But is football hooliganism on the rise? Let’s take a closer look: A string of outbreaks of violence, several deadly, suggest that fan unrest in Latin American football is spiralling out of control. In March 2022, images of a mass brawl at a game in Mexico that left 26 seriously injured and led to 14 arrests went viral and attracted added attention because the country is set to co-host the 2026 World Cup with the USA and Canada.
On Saturday, early in the second half of a Mexican league game between visiting Atlas and Querétaro FC, a riot broke out in Estadio Corregidora.
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 8, 2022
The brawl has left Mexico in mourning, triggering questions about transparency, security and accountability.https://t.co/l2jfnypSOs pic.twitter.com/Klc01uke2y
On the same evening there were savage attacks beside a stadium in Palmira, just outside the Colombian city of Cali, between America and Deportivo Cali fans. The next day, a man was shot dead in a confrontation between fans of Atletico Mineiro and Cruzeiro in Brazil. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have enacted laws to quell excesses by punishing hooligans with jail or even cancelling sporting events. Some of these initiatives replicate steps in Europe to control hooligans, such as biometric identification or video surveillance in and around stadiums. After the riot in Queretaro, Mexico banned travelling fans from games – a measure used in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia – but questioned by experts because, they argue, the fans still travel and the violence moves to the streets. The data bears this out. Despite their best efforts the toll remains huge: 157 in Brazil between 2009 and 2019, 136 in Argentina in the last 20 years and at least 170 in Colombia between 2001 and 2019. [caption id=“attachment_10461041” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Fans clash during a Mexican league match between Queretaro and Atlas, at the Corregidora stadium, in Queretaro, Mexico. AP[/caption] In Brazil, at least nine incidents have been reported since 12 February – including the shooting dead of a Palmeiras fan and the stoning of team buses, in which players were injured.
Things are little better in England.
As per The Guardian, the UK football policing unit (UKFPU) in January 2022 said arrests increased by 47 per cent in the 2019-20 season. Meanwhile, reports of chaos at matches witnessed a 36 per cent rise. The newspaper in September reported that arrests increased 60 per cent in the 2021 season when compared to the year prior to the pandemic. It quoted data from the UK home office as saying the 2021-2022 season witnessed 2,198 arrests – 59 per cent more than the 2018-19 season. Pitch invasions spiked a massive 127 per cent to 441 incidents, while hate crimes also witnessed a whopping increase of 99 per cent to 384 incidents. More than half of all the 3,019 fixtured played, 53 per cent to be exact, witnessed such incidents. Top of the list? Illegal pyrotechnics in 729 matches. Another 561 incidents of missiles being thrown were and 444 incidents of antisocial behaviour were recorded respectively. Thirty-six per cent of arrests were made for public disorder and 20 per cent of arrests were for violent disorder. What do experts say? That this is a long-standing problem. As per Latin American Post, hooliganism – aka barra brava – is big business in certain countries. The piece argues that they receive tickets as a group – of which they resell some to make a profit. “In addition, to imposing their law in the stadiums, and with the economic power they acquire they can bribe politicians, policemen and expand their “business” towards drug trafficking,” the piece states. The piece pointed to a slew of cases in 2018 that drew a link between organised crime and hooliganism including the rape of a young girl in Santiago, the boss of the Atlético Nacional bar in Colombia being sent to prison for four decades for homicide and the arrest of a gang including policemen, prisoners and a hooligan of the Gimnasio club. Speaking to The Guardian, Geoff Pearson, a senior lecturer in criminal law at Manchester University and leading expert in football hooliganism, said, “I do think there has been a post-pandemic increase in antisocial behaviour and low-level nuisance disorder more broadly. “Remember it is an offence to enter a football ground while drunk. It is also a criminal offence to engage in indecent chanting. Chucking plastic bottles or your pints in the air are also illegal … these are more the low-level disorder offences we are seeing and they are seen [by fans] as being transgressive rather than deliberate criminality. “There’s a subculture who go to football, mainly lads and anything from teenagers through to 60-odd, who go for a transgressive experience. Watching the football is only one element of what is important to the day. Getting absolutely blottoed in whatever way, having a sing-song, hanging around with your mates, expressing your identity and coming back with a bunch of stories that will get you through the working week is what it’s about.” Mark Roberts, the national chief of football policing, told The Independent more and more teens were being used to smuggle drugs and weapons into the stadium “We’re seeing younger supporters who are engaged in violence, banding together and actually seeking out pre-planned disorder,” he added.
“It’s a worrying trend both in terms of the nature of the violence and the fact that younger people are becoming involved.”
“What we’re seeing in operations is a lot of younger children. We’ve identified kids as young as 10 knocking around with groups, we’re seeing those in their early teens travelling to away games,” Roberts added. But others contend that the authorities’ focus is far too narrow. While academics who study the issue say that the end of coronavirus restrictions, which have been blamed for increases in violence in French and English football, are a factor, there are other underlying problems. “There is no way to end violence in football, that should be very clear,” Heloisa Reis, a professor at the Unicamp University of Sao Paulo, told AFP. “But it can be reduced. For that, a very comprehensive public policy is needed,” said Reis, the author of a book about the problem. “The great failure of the policies adopted is that they focus exclusively on the security component,” added sociologist German Gomez, a researcher at the Colombian Association of Sports Studies. [caption id=“attachment_12304432” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] This photo obtained from Italian news agency Ansa shows Eintracht Frankfurt fans (Rear) clash with anti-riot police on 15 March, 2023 in downtown Naples prior to the UEFA Champions League round of 16, second leg football match between SSC Napoli and Eintracht Frankfurt to be played at the Diego-Maradona stadium in Naples. AFP[/caption] Specialists agree that measures tend to ignore academic studies or social background frustrations stemming from unemployment, inequality or drug and alcohol consumption. Dr Martha Newson told The Guardian what’s happening in football mirrors society. “There’s a seamless transition between football culture and the rest of society,” she said. “There’s no sort of lag. It’s just an instant mirror holding up what’s happened to society but amplified because of this ritual, high-affect state you’re in [as a fan]. There’s a massive amount of tension in the country at the moment so it comes out in football.” But Reis argues the root of the problem is “toxic masculinity”. Football matches provide an arena for competition between men to gain power over rivals, especially on their own territory, through physical force. Reis advocates public policies focused on the education of men but she is not optimistic. “We have lived under male domination for centuries. The male values reproduced are domination, strength, courage. Is there a prospect of ending that? There is not,” she said. Specialists perceive an increase in violence since COVID restrictions ended and fans returned to the stadiums. “These are the consequences of such a prolonged confinement, in which people when they return to a public event have a need to break out of that confinement,” said Gomez.
The fans agree that something has changed.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsDaniel, a Manchester City fan, told BBC his daughter was hit with a pint glass at a game. “I’ve been going to football games for 30 years and I’ve never experienced a football environment like we have at the moment,” he said. “I was at the Euro final in 2021 and my stepson got hit on the head by an empty can of beer walking up Wembley Way. It’s febrile and it is different, and anyone who says that it isn’t either doesn’t go to a lot of football or isn’t close enough to the game to understand the change. “It would be too broad to say it’s got worse everywhere but big games, it’s absolutely febrile. We’re going to the Manchester derby but we’ll be in the away end and I know that it’s going to be like running the gauntlet. At big games, it’s always been like that but it does feel back to how I remember the early 1990s was to me.” “I remember being in a cage at Cambridge in the home end to keep us in and there was a sense that football fans were a different breed - but I felt it had become a family game, a more family sport. “Now, it feels like it’s got worse to me. The big games feel even more tense.” Emily, a Port Vale fan, concurred. “For example, at Sheffield Wednesday over Christmas, we parked near the ground and were wearing our football colours. We walked away from the car and a load of Sheffield fans keyed the car. It was unnecessary and really difficult. “In the ground, we haven’t really seen many problems but my 12-year-old daughter refuses to come to the football because of aggression she saw when Port Vale played Manchester City in 2020. The away supporters were so aggressive towards Vale fans - men literally foaming at the mouth, not even watching the match just turning around and shouting abuse and swearing. “That type of experience can really put kids off a football match. [caption id=“attachment_13398782” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] After the match, Lionel Messi criticised the police “repression” of fans, posting on social media: “This can’t be tolerated! It’s craziness, it needs to stop.”[/caption] “There are some clubs with that particular reputation and you just think ‘I’m not going to take the kids to that’. We think carefully about which games we go to. I worry less inside the stadium; I worry much more outside. “The other thing which is a new dimension is the online world - social media is fuelling an awful lot of aggression and violence pre-match between fans. You can see it flooded on to Twitter and other social media platforms. “Planned meet-ups for violence happen, with loads of aggression towards fans and that is one of the thing fuelling the rise of aggression outside the grounds. “It is a part of the game, it is a minority but the social media aspect is one that we can’t not talk about in the modern game.” ‘Can’t be tolerated!’ On Tuesday night, the iconic Brazil venue descended into chaos as players tried in vain to get fans to stop the fray. Argentina captain Lionel Messi led his team back to the dressing room, returning only after the violence had been quelled. Rio state police called the events “deplorable,” and accused the CBF of meeting with its commanders to discuss security plans only after tickets had sold out with a mixed seating plan. “The CBF decided to release tickets for sale without country quotas and, worse, without delimiting separate seating areas,” it said in a statement.
The CBF rejected accusations of negligence.
“State police and other authorities were aware of the plan to use mixed seating, which is the standard for matches organised by FIFA,” it said in a statement. “The organization and planning of the match were carefully and strategically carried out by the CBF, together with the authorities, especially the police.” After the match, Messi criticised the police “repression” of fans, posting on social media: “This can’t be tolerated! It’s craziness, it needs to stop.” With inputs from agencies
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