3 of 3

Write now Article Tools

I can witness what my country, Italy is doing to fight this plague, as I usually call it, because this can be the death of soccer.
The answer is; LITTLE, TOO LITTLE.

In fact, laws are still by far not enough severe to punish hooligans (here called ULTRAS) with many years of jail, especially when recidivist and the prohibition for them to get into a stadium when involved in "light" violence episodes and write their signature at a police station in the hours of the football match are ridiculous, not taking them away from the circulation.

Italian laws are, also in this field, too "soft" in punishing all violence acts against other supporters, the police, or the damages done to the stadium structures and to the surrounding town, often the hooligans' favourite battlefield.
Too many are the legal escapes for them, including the crime prescription after few years after the fact, if a condemn hasn't still emitted.

So, these idiots only rarely go in prison and when this happens, only for few days or months, in most of cases.
Then, they're free to start again their violent activity.

The inquiry and control activity of police within Ultras' clubs, to know, identify the most dangerous subjects and arrest them as they commit or plan to commit a violent act, is too little.
Then, the donation of gratis tickets to Ultras by the soccer societies would be forbidden by law, but this rule is still not present.
Many security structures at the entrances and video-cameras have been installed in the stadiums recently and these are more secure, in effect, but this is not enough because still too scarce is the prevention and filtering activity before the match and still too many dangerous objects are carried into the stadiums.

Then, how video-cameras can be useful when the Ultras hide their face with scarves and balaclavas?

The matches more at risk for clashes are today allowed only without the public, but this can't be a definitive solution, because it's necessary to allow normal and pacific people, like women and children, to go to the stadium without any risk, like in all civil Countries.

The soccer societies have the objective responsibility for the violence acts in the stadium, and they are punished, also heavily, when something bad happens, like the launch of an object striking the referee or a player, but the burden of security, for these facts, can't fall only on the shoulders of the societies.
They can't pay an army of private vigilantes replacing or adding to the police in controlling the stadiums, but they can surely help the police providing all the informations about supporters clubs.

How many people will have still to DIE before something really changes here in Italy?

In U.K., after many terrible violence episodes caused by hooligans 15 years ago (like the tragedy at the Heysel stadium in Bruxelles, Belgium, caused by the Liverpool drunk supporters) severe laws have been approved and, above all, put into practice with severity, so that good and stable results have been got.
It would be enough to "copy" what the English authorities have already made; a great "creative science" is not necessary.

Learn more about this author, Aldo Bonincontro.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about What nations are doing to stop soccer hooligans?
We want to hear your view. Write now!