By Andreas Gkoumplias,
It was February the 3rd of 2022 when the football world would come to a shock due to the events that took place in Thessaloniki, Greece, where a 19-year-old supporter of Alkis was murdered, by hooligans of an opposing team that also viciously attacked and injured his friends. As days were passing by and the investigation went on, more and more details regarding the event saw the day of light. Reports of the incident seem to suggest that the hooligans approached the supporters of Alkis and asked them what team they support. When they got a different answer than the one they expected, they launched an attack, fatally wounding one and seriously the other two.
Hooliganism is a form of civil disobedience that involves violence and disruptive or destructive behaviors that associate with football events. Hooliganism has existed for a while in football. Notably, the first recorded outbreaks happened in the late 1880s in England, when gangs of supporters would gather and intimidate referees, opposing supporter gangs, and even opposing football players. Nowadays, things differ greatly. Hooliganism inside stadiums is prohibited and teams of supporters that break the law suffer great sanctions by UEFA. Most events associated with hooligans happen on the outside, where usually supporters of two or more teams set up a time and place to resolve their differences. It is also usual that a place that is not close to the stadium is selected so that the police would not interfere whatsoever. Hooliganism reached its peak in the years the 1970s to 1980s, especially in England, when groups of fans became more organized and dangerous.
It is actually very concerning that in 2022 we still have incidents like the aforementioned one, especially in Europe. In recent years, governments around the world have started promoting campaigns to end violence in and out of stadiums and put the whole hooligan mentality to rest. To enhance the chances and the likelihood of something like that happening there are also other ways that can help reduce football hooliganism. We have to remember that in the majority of the cases we are not talking about people that are passionate about their team and are willing to actually fight over it: we are talking about people that are obsessed with violence, people that are searching for a way to start a fight, the rabble-rousers, and people that are trying to just get some anger out of their system. Some of the ways suggested include stadiums not being maxed to their full capacity, empty stadiums so that no one can actually fight with no one, fan coaching, which is an initiative to educate the fans on how they should behave while inside a stadium, and as a last measure we have segregation.
Starting off simpler though, a good idea to help prevent all of these would be to have the fan coaching lessons be taught at schools, which is mostly where kids pick their favorite team that they are going to support for the rest of their lives. Not only is it cool as a subject, but it also helps build a mentality where no matter the team differences that may occur, violence is not an option. Kids need to understand, and we need to help them understand, that supporting your team is awesome and a great thing to do, but killing or resorting to violence for it is totally unacceptable.
To summarize, hooliganism and violence, unfortunately, have a place in a sport meant to provide people with joy, they always had that place and possibly always will. However, it is entirely on us, whether we try to completely take it off the pitch, or continue living with it like we always had. Hooliganism and violence inside the stadiums function as a shackle that we must desperately try to break free from.
References
- What is hooliganism?, politics.co.uk, Available here
- 23 year old Albanian arrested for the murder of 19 year old Alkis, greekcitytimes.com, Available here
