No to football hooliganism

Lazarus Sauti

The legendary Liverpool Football Club Manager, Bill Shankley, who was passionate about football, when asked whether football was a matter of life and death, is alleged to have said: “Oh no! – It’s much more important than that!”

Unfortunately, football has turned out, in a number of cases, to be a matter of life and death, insofar as football-related violence and misbehaviour at and around matches is concerned.

Because of high profile incidents of hooliganism in Africa and abroad, football hooliganism has become football’s killer disease.

Although hooliganism is often regarded as a modern phenomenon, one can trace its origins back to the turn of the Twentieth Century.

In 1909, for example, goalposts were torn down and over 100 people were injured in a pitched battle between fans and the police following the Scottish Cup Final in Glasgow.

According to many commentators, the modern era of football hooliganism began in 1961, when, in that year, a major riot broke out following an equalising goal during a match between Sunderland and Tottenham.

Accordingly, football hooliganism had become a serious social problem in the world. And naturally, the question facing the football and civil authorities is how best to combat it.

To unravel it, football hooliganism refers to destructive behavior that is performed by football fans and is widely considered to be unruly and destructive behaviour.

The behaviour is often based upon rivalry between different teams and conflict may take place before or after football matches.

Participants often select locations away from stadia to avoid arrest by the police, but conflict can also erupt spontaneously inside the stadium or in the surrounding streets.

For all its entertainment value, football in the world is not just a game anymore.

It embodies different cultures.

Wherever football is played, emotions will always be at a high and anything that can be of controversy to some can spark the flames of hooliganism.

While football is an emotional game, actions of hooliganism have serious implications on teams as they can be fined or suspended from the league.

Thus, true football supporters should not vouch for their teams to be fined or suspended by throwing stones, oranges and empty bottles into the football pitch.

By throwing missiles into the pitch, supporters are actually sabotaging the players whom they claim to love and support, because club money meant to pay the players allowances and salaries will go to the league as fines and the police for beefing up security in stadiums.

Commenting on football hooliganism, Highlanders Football Club Chairman Peter Dube once said: “Fair Play is what we subscribe to as an institution. We call on our supporters to practise self-restraint and not to take matters into their own hands.

“The soccer laws are clear about untoward behaviour off the field by fans. May our true Highlanders sons and daughters desist from throwing missiles when calls don’t go our way.”

The assertion by Dube shows that hooliganism could only add to the woes of the cash-strapped clubs as they would remain poorer when fined for such offences.

Violent behaviour not only adds to the troubles of cash-strapped teams but it also chases away sponsors and advertisers who have a desire to pour their money into the game.

Corporate organisations have no wish to be associated with violence and controversy.

Since hooliganism can turn football ugly from beautiful, clubs will suffer because some spectators who endured acts of violence will prefer not to pay to watch a match in the stadium again, no matter how important the game is.

This costs teams the much needed money to improve their welfare. For our football to benefit, hooliganism should be eradicated.

Therefore, it is crucial to note that eradicating hooliganism in football requires a culture of change because the minute we think we have it under control there will be trouble in and around stadiums.

An improvement in crowd control, appropriate policing, state-of-the-art CCTV systems and the efforts of football administrators, players and supporters is needed to make football and stadiums a fan-friendly environment.

In view of the fact that football administrators influence the behaviour of their supporters, they must make sure that they teach football fans to act right.

Administrators must learn the flair for organisation to reorient the supporters to accept that bad decisions do happen in football.

Fans should always remember that a single missile thrown into the field of play has the potential to cause destruction of the whole city.  

Consequently, they should remain calm and self restraint. Supporters are not experts in match officiating and they should leave the match officials to do their job without any undue pressure.

Although some may claim that media have tried to create a feeling that the problem of hooliganism is a larger one than it actually is, the media cannot help but pick out instances of violence at football grounds constantly.

The enormous increase in the amount of television cameras present at football matches across the world means that disturbances within stadiums are inevitably caught on video, which proves that the problem is there and is not sensationalised in these instances.

The media can play a role because the coverage of hooliganism betrays a curious paradox.

The media's coverage of football hooliganism, be it through television or newspapers, is thus very significant as it is the media that help construct the public's understanding and perception of the problem.

Football administrators in Africa should sacrifice and use cameras in their various stadiums to help prevent football violence.

The supporters caught causing disturbances should be banned from visiting stadiums.

Although police can contribute significantly to hospitality and uprooting of trouble causers inside and outside stadiums, they cannot and should not deal with hooliganism alone.

Thus, an integrated approach is needed.

Therefore, football administrators, security agents and media practitioners have to develop policies and co-operate with one another.

If the different policies are not made explicit, if they are not integrated with one another and if arrangements are not binding, they will not work as expected.

According to FIFA Fair Play Code, winning is without value if victory has been achieved unfairly or dishonestly.

Thus, football administrators, players and supporters should have the courage and character to desist from football hooliganism.