Before talking about football hooliganism, it first must be clear how this occurrence is defined. What is football hooliganism? Within the literature many meanings are given, but actually do not require really covers the complete problem, we consider. The main reason for that is the fact hooliganism is something that has expanded all over the world which makes it is an extremely complicated problem actually. Between the countries, and even within countries and clubs, there are extensive differences. For instance: some hooligan communities are extremely well organised, others not; one group is more violent than the other; some assault is straight related to sport, other not, etc. So you can say that hooliganism is many-sited and worldwide, why is it an extremely complicated problem. Eric Dunning explained that there actually is no precise classification of soccer hooliganism: "it lacks legal definition, exact demarcation of regular membership and is used to cover a number of actions which take place in pretty much straight football-related contexts" (Spaaij, 2005). We take this as our starting place in this newspaper, showing that the challenge is very complicated and very hard to harm.
To Guilianotti there are two important 'types' of football assault. Some violent behavior can be called spontaneous, other assault is more organized. The first type, the spontaneous violence can be caused by a 'incorrect' decision of the referee for example or even by a wrong "word" of someone. They are situations that couldn't be foreseen and it can lead to total chaos. It's very dangerous and it needs a fast reaction of the police. The latter type, the organised assault, may even become more dangerous and bigger of size. 'The battlefield' in Beverwijk Holland is a good example of this kind of assault. Two hooligan categories (Ajax and Feyenoord hooligans) met each other at an wide open field and fought with one another. The rest is record; one man perished. Even today this event has a great impact. But this is only one example, therefore many other illustrations can be stated here to demonstrate the condition of well-organised hooligan fights against other groups and the police. Even innocent people, like father and son, are not safe any longer in those situations. Through the years many things got changed and company of violent behaviour actually became easier due to the internet and mobile telephones for example. Another point would be that the stadium is not the private place any longer as it used to be in days gone by. The security possessed become a lot better, so it became harder to riot in the stadium itself. Rioters now find other, more anonymous places where they can still continue on with their illegal activities. This helps it be of course harder to control for the police. The preceding cases were just directed at illustrate how difficult the occurrence hooliganism is and just how many problems it includes.
The above differentiation by Guilianotti (spontaneous vs. organised) is a very basic one and it does not cover the whole problem matching to us. Spaaij makes several attempts to give a far more precise meaning of football hooliganism. By wanting to conceptualize the phenomenon he had to deal with several problems. Below, a few of most the relevant problems are quickly described showing how difficult it is to explain hooliganism.
1. In the past hooligans mainly fought against other hooligans. Actually, nowadays there are a great number of good examples where hooligans attacked the authorities or other innocent people, like 'normal fans'. This is very dangerous of course because now no one is safe nowadays.
2. Where in fact the violence used to be in and around the stadiums, now it increasingly more spread to all or any kind of other places like housparties, open areas and other locations that aren't related to the sport. This transfer in violence is most likely due to the better security in and around the stadiums. So that it really becomes a wider and much more incontrollable problem. Just like the first problem this is an essential point in this paper.
3. Basketball hooliganism not always means violence in the form of really attacking other folks or demolishes all kinds of products. For al great deal of so-called hooligans, group sense is most important and violence is not really a main concern. To them it is all more symbolic opposition.
4. Like Guilianotti mentioned already, not all the occurrences are well-planned. Actually there are a great number of situations where the violence had not been planned at all. Like said before one single event can lead to a huge riot. This is dangerous of course because of the 'surprise component' and it becomes harder to counter by the authorities. Many people, like the police, feel that hooligan categories are always very well-organised, but this is definitely not always the truth. The rate of company differs from country to country and even within countries and golf clubs there are many differences. Some groupings have a genuine hierarchical (legal) company, like in the army, while other groupings just deal with with minimal organisation in any way. That is another point what makes it so hard to determine hooliganism.
Although, there is no precise explanation of soccer hooliganism; almost every person acknowledge the challenge of the violence that seems to go together with this specific group of basketball 'followers'. The final thirty years it really became a sociological problem en many attempts had been designed to harm this so-called 'British decease'. A lot of different reduction strategies led to a decrease of violent behaviour in and around the stadiums in many countries all around the globe. But despite all the attempts that are made, hooliganism remains a troubling problem (Spaaij, 2001). The next chapter describes some good working prevention ways of counteract hooliganism.
How to prevent soccer hooliganism?
As brought up in the launch, football hooliganism is an extremely old phenomenon. "Even in the 1870s, when the overall game got its modern form in Great britain, there was violent behaviour of spectators" (Dunning, 1986). But the previous thirty, forty years the issues do become bigger and bigger and the trend became a real societal problem. Something experienced to improve and the government bodies did a lot to prevent the violence that is included with hooliganism. But exactly what is a good technique to prevent this complicated problem?
First, it must be clear that there is not a solitary strategy to combat hooliganism. In the last chapter it was stated that there are a lot of dissimilarities between groups in every country and city. Every group has its own characteristics which includes different problems. So one has to look at the precise problems causes by an group and the
Spaaij gives some good working strategies
It is also important that there is a global and countrywide exchange of prevention strategies. Good-working strategies in one city or land could then be carried out in another city or land for example. So, successful protection of sports hooliganism requires assistance between a variety of institutions and realtors, and also between sports clubs and admirer clubs. Their dedication is very important and the duty is to continue the development to make even better strategies for the future.
Over the years many successful strategies are developed to avoid football assault. Like is stated before these strategies originated from across the world thanks to the great effort of many relevant specialists. Now some four types of prevention are talked about briefly. First, the authorities forces are talked about. There's been an alteration in policing sports complements. It used to be very ambitious just responding to the problems as they occur. That's why the police got an undesirable name, especially in Southern and Eastern European countries and in Latin America (Frosdick, Holford and Sidney, 1999). They used too much assault relating to a lot of people and this acquired a counterproductive impact. So something experienced to change. The last a decade the policing changed into more proactive and intelligence-led, especially in Britain, The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. This so called proactive and intelligence-led policing is advanced and appears to be very successful in these countries. Special cops for example are meticulously monitoring the activities of hooligan categories. So the law enforcement officials forces are now trying very difficult to prevent violence, whereas the old way of policing actually was just a a reaction to the assault. Nevertheless, significant variants exist in the ventures made in intelligence-led policing in different countries and in various localities (Spaaij, 2005). Second, enthusiast tasks as a avoidance strategy. An important aim of a fan team is to improve the relationship between the hooligans and the team. However, it is difficult to determine the preventative effects of fan clubs. Facts suggests that certain projects have improved the partnership between hooligans, golf clubs, youth staff and the police, and have prevented young fans from determining with soccer hooliganism (Bieleman, De Jong, Naayer and Nijboer, 2004). But there's also hooligan organizations who don't desire to be in a enthusiast club. They would like to separate themselves from regular fans and they will go on with their hooligan activities. Third, the football club itself has a significant role in avoiding hooliganism. For a very long time clubs where looking to please the hooligans, by giving them free seat tickets and an own place within the stadium for example, because they were frightened of reprisals. All this favours only resulted in development of the group and that couldn't have been the motive of the clubs (Spaaij and Vi±as, 1996). So clubs have to produce a statement, they have to take action, just like FC Barcelona performed with their zero-tolerance policy for example.
Fourth, and lastly, real football fans are important in the prevention of hooliganism. Using their followers' organizations they can perform a great deal of best for the sport. They may be against racism and violence plus they cooperate with many institutes. Many of these supporters' organizations contribute to conferences, debates or educational programs promoting the positive sociable functions of sport. This is a good thing, specifically for young fans, because they are learning that assault is a terrible thing and that this is not good for the sport.
References:
Dunning, Eric, Murphy, Patrick & Williams, John: "Spectator Assault at Football Matches: Towards a Sociological Eplanation", 1986
Dunning, Eric: "Towards a sociological knowledge of soccer hooliganism as a world occurrence", 2000
Giulianotti, Richard: "An alternative kind of carnival", 2001
Spaaij, Ramon: "The prevention of soccer hooliganism: a transnational point of view", 2005
