A referee who is hit in the face by a frantic chairman, and has to take a few kicks while lying on the ground (Turkey). A government that, fed up with the ongoing riots, decides that supporters are not welcome for two months (Greece). A coach who needs twelve stitches in the face and suffers a concussion after hooligans pelted the team bus of the great rival with projectiles. A few weeks later a fan is stabbed to death on the way to the stadium (France). Fire arrows and chairs flying in the direction of the opponent or the police as if they were confetti (Belgium).
Violence around the turf does not seem to be contained, with the Turkish brawl on Monday being the low point. ‘I heard Faruk Koca (the chairman of Ankaragücü, ed.) shouting that I would be “done”’, referee Halil Umut Meler said from his sickbed the next day. ‘When he turned to me personally, he said: “I’m going to kill you”.’ The Turkish Football Association has now banned Koca for life. Ankaragücü must also complete five matches without an audience.
Ankaragücü-Rizesport, 11 december. Take a look at boksbal. — © getty
“It is time to set clearer standards about how, as a football society, you deal with accepting referee decisions,” says sports sociologist Filip Boen (KU Leuven), who wrote in 2017 Everyone is a supporter, the group virus in our brain. Even at youth level, players are cheered on and coaches, representatives and supporters teach them to enter into discussions with the referees. ‘In rugby, for example, you don’t see that at all. As a football player you eventually feel abnormal if you don’t protest.’
Rain and drops
Nand De Klerck, spokesperson at Voetbal Vlaanderen, agrees that this culture has been growing from an early age. ‘I often hear: Come on, just drop it. Or: if the ball is outside, claim it, even if it’s not yours. If it rains for the pros, it drips for the youth. Many coaches and parents see professional football as an example for young children.’ Football Flanders is trying to break through this, with initiatives such as the action plan ‘Doedegijdatthuisook?’. It also created a fair play ranking and a fair play parent to create more respect on and off the football field. “To ensure that players no longer exhibit that behavior and hopefully do not exhibit it later,” says De Klerck. ‘These incidents are also an opportunity. To say: look, this is how it shouldn’t be done.’
In scientific literature, the most important side issue in the world has often been described as a sublime continuation of the ancient tribal disputes. For example, in 1981 the British zoologist Desmond Morris traced football back to prehistoric hunting. In The soccer tribe (literally: The football tribe, in Dutch the book was marketed as Spel om de ball) he describes how every football club exhibits the characteristics of a small tribe, including tribal territory, tribal elders, tribal followers, and so on. Once we sit in the stands with our colored scarves, it’s us versus them. “That feeling is enormously cultivated in football,” says Boen. ‘The overarching identity, we are all football fans who come together to see a good match, has disappeared over the years.’
Masked Standard fans pelt police with flares
It remained quiet on Saturday evening during the Walloon derby – according to the image of the match – but after the match between Standard and Charleroi there were incidents outside the stadium again. A group of masked Standard fans tried to reach the visitors’ car park and were pushed back by a group of stewards. When reinforcements arrived from mounted police, they were pelted with flares and bombs. The incidents occurred in retaliation for a surprise attack by Charleroi fans before the match. Some visiting fans are said to have infiltrated the Liège stands and pelted supporters with bombs. (ts)
When riots broke out during the Ostend-Galatasaray basketball match in October 2022, they turned out to be instigated by traveling football fans of the Turkish club. And the fact that the Greek city derby between the volleyball teams of Olympiacos and Panathinaikos completely went off the rails a week ago also had to do with the football branch of both clubs. Why do basketball, volleyball or rugby – also team sports in which rival teams compete against each other – usually escape aggressive behavior? “What plays a role is that in no other sport is the status of a club as visible as in football,” says Filip Boen. ‘If things go badly, you can hardly escape it. Basketball and rugby receive much less attention, which puts social identification into perspective. For loyal club supporters, their identity with their team is so important that it also has an impact on their self-esteem.’
My club, my city
Yet violence does not only occur in football. American football, college basketball or ice hockey also sometimes suffer from incidents. “But they have a spontaneous character and are purely competition-related,” says Dutch sociologist Ramón Spaaij, affiliated with Victoria University in Melbourne and author of Hooligans, fans and fanaticism. ‘Sometimes it even concerns celebration riots (riots after a victory, ed.). In football, the violence is larger-scale and historically more organized.’
Ajax-Feyenoord, September 24. Stopped due to flares. — © anp
He locates its source in England in the 1960s. ‘The baby boom after the Second World War meant there were a lot of young people. Together with them, numerous subcultures emerged, including one of organized violence. In every neighborhood you saw groups of young people who felt they were in charge of their territory. If there was a professional club in the area, they linked their identity to that club. When the hard cores and football hooliganism emerged, groups of young men in particular increasingly attended matches, initially men from lower social backgrounds. This means that a team is often socio-culturally connected to a city. Look at Antwerp, or the great rivalry between Ajax (Amsterdam) and Feyenoord (Rotterdam).’
The report ‘Learning from football riots’, which the Dutch Bureau Beke presented in mid-October and was commissioned by the Dutch police, states that football violence has changed after the corona crisis due to the new growth of relatively young supporters who behave unpredictably. Violence is used without rational or specific reasons, not only on match days but also in the run-up to them, making prevention more difficult. Another remarkable evolution: the ‘newcomers’ ‘shit’ everything and everyone, including security professionals and ‘established’ hooligans.
They are the boss
It is a development that has also been observed in Belgium. It can be heard here that the spotters can no longer enter into dialogue with the often masked young guard who are causing a stir. You see them at almost every top club, dressed in a dark hoodie. They shield themselves, no longer adhere to the codes and customs that supporter groups normally used in the past, and are not simply deterred by a slightly heavier fine or a stadium ban.
“Rioters believe that there is no one above them,” Spaaij explains. ‘They are the boss. Football stadiums are a kind of sanctuary for them to prove themselves. Like men who are not afraid, who are strong, who let their fists do the talking. There is often also fear within clubs towards those rioters. Legitimate fear, because where the police still enjoy some protection, this is quite difficult for club directors. People know where they live. I sometimes came to clubs and I would sit there and talk to – you name it – the safety coordinator or a board member. If a hard core leader came to demand 200 tickets, he usually left with 200 tickets.’
According to Spaaij, the rioters get the feeling that they have a certain power and influence that they do not experience in daily life – at school or at work. ‘It is almost addictive for them. I even know some men in their forties, sometimes even in their fifties, who can’t let it go because of the status they have acquired within that group. In that environment they feel important and experience peak experiences.’
Co-owner
Compared to the 1980s, when full-blown battles took place inside and outside stadiums, the violence is more limited. Another important difference is that hooliganism is not exclusively caused by lowlifes who only come to the stadium to fight. It is often a reaction to something that happens on or off the field, to the fact that in their view their club is being wronged.
“Look at the chairs that flew through the air during Anderlecht-Standard,” says Filip Boen. ‘These may have been a response from the Standard supporters to the questionable exclusion of one of their players. So it is not about gratuitous violence, it is a response to the fact that in their eyes their team is being disadvantaged. What is done to their club is also done to themselves.’
Standard fans on Saturday evening during the Walloon derby against Charleroi. — © BELGA
It also explains why the actions are sometimes directed against the club’s own board or owner. Remember how ten years ago about ten Standard supporters forced their way into Roland Duchâtelet’s office, out of dissatisfaction with the malaise at the Liège club. Or how the Charleroi fans reached their boiling point last year in the home match against KV Mechelen and, despite a 1–0 lead, targeted chairman Mehdi Bayat with an avalanche of firecrackers – the Carolos ultimately lost the match for the green table with forfeit figures .
“Those supporters don’t feel like customers, they feel like co-owners of a club,” says Boen. “In a wrong way, they want to put their team back on the right track.” ‘You also notice how they react against what they call “counterfeit audiences”,’ adds Ramón Spaaij. ‘The main stands, the higher classes, the spectators who sit more comfortably, make little noise and are quite passive as supporters. They are just as likely to target players or trainers who, in their view, do not adequately defend the club’s honor.’
More women, less violence
But why don’t you see that violent behavior in women’s football, nor in the Red Devils? ‘Identification with a national team is much less deep than identification with a club,’ says Filip Boen. ‘You can temporarily have a huge revival, such as during the World Cup in Russia, but it fluctuates much more.’
Moreover, for the average Red Devils fan, football is not of vital importance. The fact that national team matches are much more of a family celebration also has to do with who is in the stadium. The demographics are completely different from that of an average football club, with many more women and children in the stands. “Where you put large groups of young men together, you create a recipe for riots,” says Ramón Spaaij. ‘For them, status and power are much more linked to aggression and violence than for women.’
In that context, he cites the English example, where things often went wrong in the 1980s. ‘In the Premier League (where there are only seats, ed.) it has been clearly shown that the composition of who sits in your stadium does have an impact. By creating family stands, she focused more on families, attracted more tourists, and so on. This means that the supporter group is diversified and the risk of violence is limited.’ The downside: on average you have to pay twice as much for an entrance ticket as in continental Europe, which means that top football is increasingly reserved for the happy few.
