PalenQ

Barbarians Sack Rome! - i love seeing the wholesome goody-two-shoes Dutch being called Barbarians! Tsk tsk!

Jean

I don't see any purpose in opining that other teams' fans are just as bad or worse. This is sickening behavior no matter where it occurs and who is involved.

When this sort of cr@p happens in Los Angeles, it often involves people/instigators with an anarchist bent who have no interest in the particular sport.

nytraveler

There is a big different between offensive chants from the crowd (as anyone at a Yankee/Red Sox game can testify) and active violence (which is typically limited to the teams on the field in baseball).

There should be some way to 1) either control drinking during games (one can;t bring alcohol into many stadiums - have to buy it there at very high prices) or track violent crowds.
We're talking about large cities which presumably have significant police forces they can put on alert and rush to any area with rioting drunken louts. Why not just put a thousand or so cops on OT for the time after the game? I understand some small university towns, which many have tiny police forces can;t do it but a major city force should be able to.

PalenQ

nytrveler - there is also a BIG difference in chants we commonly hear here - like "ref you suck" and ethnic slur chants as has been the case too many times in various European soccer venues, including the U.K.

If a stadium as a whole chanted "I'd rather be a Paki than a Turk" (Paki being derogatory in itself I think) there would be a huge hullabaloo about it - condemnation from every corner - but it would never ever happen here or at least has not in my long (but short) memory - something about soccer that brings out the worst in the worst and that stadium chant in the U.K. was not just a few folks but the majority chiming in.

Inteesting article from The Guardian on this chant being racist or not:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/apr/09/race.world

PalenQ

and another one from West Ham, usually sad sacks "I'd rather be a Paki than a Jew"

https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t369703/

annhig

nyt - yes, they have thought of all that. in the UK violence at or going to or from the grounds has been greatly reduced as the fans are kept apart both in the grounds and along the routes to them, the pubs are restricted in what they can sell, there is no alcohol allowed to be brought into the ground, and lots of police are deployed.

The problem becomes worse when fans are abroad, and they are dispersed all over a city, popping up, as in Rome, at more or less random places.

For example, there was a problem this week in Paris when some so-called Chelsea fans decided to insult and assault a parisian chap who was simply trying to get onto the metro carriage that they were in. His offence - he wasn't white. They were filmed by another brit [who lives in Paris] and saw what was going on. Their faces are clearly visible and 5 "fans" have now apparently had their Chelsea season tickets suspended. It is not clear whether these were the same charmers who chanted racist slogans at St. Pancras when they got back. They weren't rioting or even noticeably drunk, and there don't appear to have been that many of them - certainly nothing to attract the interest of the police until the problems occurred.

sandralist

I was just reading a news article about Italians who took to twitter make fun of the ISIS threat to to invade Rome and one of them tweeted at ISIS:

"You are coming to Rome? Ok, it's safe now. The Dutch soccer hooligans went home."

bvlenci

There was no alcohol on sale to take away in central Rome on the day of the game and no alcohol in the stadium. As I said before, the fans in the stadium were fairly well behaved. It's possible that most of the hooligans didn't have tickets, or maybe they had all passed out by then.

The Questore of Rome (police commissioner) made a very sorry showing in his post disaster account of what happened. He basically said that the police action was a success, because no one was killed.

annhig

oh dear, that's not encouraging, bvl.

there is a long history of organised violence amongst a minority of football fans - it's much more to do with the violence than the football.

PalenQ

I find the staidum-wide chants of ethic or racial slurs as upsetting as the usual violence - both are reprehensible - the slurs often involve a majority or most of the fans at a stadium as the herd mentality takes over.

annhig

and Pal, the racial/ethnic element is bizarre because the vast majority of teams have black players, so they are effectively insulting their own players.

bvlenci

In Italy, racist fans regularly insult their own side's non-white players.

sandralist

I didn't read the police statement, nor much about the situation in Rome, but I would be quite heartened if the police in America took people not being killed as a primary measure of success. Sometimes you get the feeling it is just the opposite. I am sorry the fountain in Rome was damaged and that other laws and harm were done. But I am also glad no one was killed, and if the police did anything to help prevent that, good, even if there is more to be said.

annhig

oh well, bvl, that's something for us to be proud of then! our fans generally only insult the other side's black players, which must be progress of a sort.

bvlenci

Sandra, if you had seen the press conference, I think you'd realize that the man was totally out of his depth and dragged that out in desperation. I think the mayor also bears some blame. At the very least, after what happened on the evening before in Campo de'Fiori, he should have made sure that measures were being taken to prevent even worse the next day. Instead, he's shocked and appalled about what happened. There's a lot of finger-pointing going on.

FrankS

oh well, bvl, that's something for us to be proud of then! our fans generally only insult the other side's black players, which must be progress of a sort.<<

Which would be more in my gnomic style ann?

Je Maintiendrai or If you aint Dutch, you aint much

nytraveler

Yes, but while racial slurs are reprehensible they are a different thing than actual violence.

And agree the Rome Police Chief must be a booby.

Josser

Talking of West Ham
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...-10062518.html

PalenQ

Yes, but while racial slurs are reprehensible they are a different thing than actual violence.>

Sure but OTOH violence is often a spur of the moment reaction that quickly spreads - racial or ethnic slurs are much more thought out and planned - being repeated at other matches, etc.

I think some of the violence may be by those not even going to the matches.

annhig

I think some of the violence may be by those not even going to the matches.>>

exactly. The violence becomes an aim in itself. In the 70s and 80s many of the teams in the UK had "fans" who formed racist gangs whose raison d'être was to set up fights with other gangs of so-called fans. The football was more-or less irrelevant.

Josser - love the Hammers clip. Football clubs have so much to gain from encouraging non-white fans to attend the games, given that in most UK cities, they make up a sizeable part of the population. Yet still there is an attitude that the racist chanting etc that we all know still goes on isn't really the responsibility of the clubs. They could easily identify and ban the culprits if they really wanted to.