Euro violence ruining Pele's 'beautiful game'

A rash of crowd violence has marked Europe's football season. Soccer bosses are worried about a return to the riot-torn years of the 1980s and experts are hunting for a cause to explain the phenomenon.

The latest flare-up took place this week in Milan, northern Italy, when two bitter rivals, Inter and AC, played in the quarter-finals for the Champions League, the top European club tournament.

Flares and other missiles rained on to the field, hurled by so-called "ultras" - violent Inter loyalists - after their team's goal was disallowed. One of the flares injured Milan's goalkeeper. The referee scrapped the match as the pitch became shrouded with red smoke.

"I've not seen anything like this before in a football stadium and we must make sure it doesn't happen again," said William Gaillard, director of communications with the European Football Association Union, Uefa, who was at the match.

"There have been several shocking incidents recently, but this is the worst."

The previous weekend, 85 police officers were injured and more than 250 fans were arrested in violent incidents in Rome, Florence and Palermo.

Earlier in the season, a Champions League match between Roma and Dynamo Kiev was abandoned after the referee's forehead was slashed by a missile.

As Uefa prepared to dish out fines and match bans to Inter Milan - and everyone heaved relief that a grudge match between Liverpool and Juventus of Turin had ended without major casualties - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi waded in.

Eyeing Italy's bid to host the 2012 European Championships, Berlusconi vowed "drastic measures" to crack down on soccer violence.

"There is a clear risk of even more serious incidents in future, a risk which must be avoided by all possible means," he said.

Yet Italy merely heads a long list of European countries rocked by crowd trouble this season.

Last weekend, German police used riot gas and clubs to arrest 46 fans after a minor regional league match between SSV Ulm of Germany and visiting FC Normannia Gmuend of Switzerland.

In March, a "friendly" match between Germany and Slovenia in the Slovenian town of Celje ended with a pitched battle outside the stadium in which 50 Germans were arrested.

In the Netherlands, a Uefa Cup match between Feyenoord of Rotterdam and Sporting Lisbon of Portugal was suspended after Dutch fans hurled a smoke bomb into the Portuguese goal and firecrackers on to the pitch, hitting one of the players.

In Greece, a Greek man stabbed to death an Albanian fan at a qualifying match for next year's World Cup.

 

In Stockholm last October, Swedish football suffered its worst outbreak of hooliganism at a derby between AIK and Hammarby.

One group of supporters had buried 27 petrol bombs in a sandpit in a children's playground near the stadium. They were discovered by a mother and her baby the afternoon before the kickoff.

Sporadic incidents of crowd trouble, in and out of the stadium, have been reported in Britain, France and Belgium. In Spain, racist right-wing supporters have taunted black players, causing hand-wringing.

The latest flareup coincides with the 20th anniversary of Belgium's Heysel Stadium disaster, when 39 Juventus fans were crushed to death after their section of the crowd was charged by Liverpool fans.

For many, Heysel was soccer's nadir.

In Britain and elsewhere, it led to closer crowd surveillance, smarter policing, improvements to stadium design and in transport arrangements for fans going to and from the match, and punishment for clubs who didn't control their hooligans.

"I don't think we are returning to the bad old days," said David Will, vice-president of the International Football Association, Fifa, whose World Cup will be contested in Germany next year. "I think there have been some isolated incidents in different countries this year, but it is not a general malaise that's returning. Hopefully, with a quick reaction of the security forces, Uefa, Fifa and local associations, we can nip this in the bud."

Sociologists say crowd tensions are an ancient part of a sport dubbed "the beautiful game" by the Brazilian star Pele. But more recently, the flow of violence has spread from Britain to continental Europe, even if measures to control it are more effective than in the past.

"It used to be called a British disease, but all of Europe has experienced some patterns of violence in crowd disorder, just as in South America," said Peter Marsh of the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford.

John Williams, a lecturer at the University of Leicester, said soccer violence was rooted not only in male tribalism but also in an exaggerated notion of local and national pride.

He wondered if the latest string of violence might be linked to European integration - that people felt swamped or alienated in a European Union where national borders counted for less, where anonymous tycoons and faceless Eurocrats counted for more.

"Soccer in Europe is a kind of staging post for town, city and regional identities and conflicts," he said. "Local identifies are at risk through super-nationals who say we should be European, but this can be reasserted by football. Supporting a club in this intensive 'ultra' way can almost take back ownership in a world that says where you come from no longer counts."