by Brian Hoovler

Created on: December 10, 2009

Soccer hooliganism is a problem the world over, not just in one specific country or on one specific continent. Even as recently as last month, during a World Cup qualifying match, hooliganism reared it's ugly head. Supporters of the Egyptian National Team attacked the bus that was carrying the Algerian National Team to their hotel. What happened afterwards? Nothing. The match went on as scheduled and the fans attended. Of course hooliganism is a problem at the club level as well.

Hooliganism in football is well known in England, although it is a problem throughout Europe, South America and, to a lesser extent, Africa and Asia. Steps are being taken to control hooliganism, but is it enough? Most clubs attempt to control crowds by employing stewards and police to keep the crowd under control, but that does not always work. So the question then is what does?

Clubs will try to calm the fans themselves, usually through press releases before matches. Each country's Football Association (FA) will usually attempt to control it if the club cannot, but that is most commonly attempted by leveling fines at the clubs. The penalty seldom if ever calms fans down as the penalty does not directly affect them. The FAwill also, if the fans inciting the trouble can be identified, ban the fans from future games.

If the incident happens on a higher stage, such as the Champion's League (or other top level club competitions), the governing body of that region will fine clubs and ban fans. In Europe, UEFA, or the Union of European Football Associations, will be in charge of this. On other continents the similar governing body will do so (CONMEBOL in South America, CONCACAF in North and Central America, CAF in Africa, AFC in Asia). If fines and banning fans cannot solve the issue, the both the FA and governing body can resort to banning the club from playing with any fans in the stadium at all in league and cup football. If hooliganism still causes problems, such as riots or fights outside of the stadium on match days, the extreme is to ban a club from competition at all, though this level of punishment has not been handed down in modern football.

On the international level, FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) controls punishments handed to countries for fan hooliganism. FIFA punishments, though known to be applicable and have occurred, are rare, as the organization prefers to allow the offending country's FA to sort the issue out.

Unfortunately there have not been many efforts to prevent hooliganism as there have been to control it after it starts. Once these efforts are stepped up, we may begin to see a gradual fade in the number of violent incidents.

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