By dixon9
April 12 2007

After reading the press and watching news reports on recent events in Italy and Spain, one can’t help feel extremely concerned about the plight of British fans and even British teams during their European campaigns. Latin police seem to have free licence to carry out indiscriminate beatings.

Some quarters of the media milk the easy story when it comes to the English abroad, no doubt UEFA suits have begun to twitch uncomfortably in swivel chairs when considering the image of the massive golden goose which is European football – a few well placed refereeing decisions (perhaps we’ve already seen a few this week?) against the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea or Spurs would take care of the problem in the meantime.  Too “grassy knoll, conspiracy theory” for you?  Let’s hope you’re right and I’m over-reacting but this weeks incidents on and off the pitch on the continent don’t bode well – we’ve been here before but this time we may well certainly have a case to protest. 

Those of you who may scoff at your rivals side getting into trouble would do well to remember history – UEFA don’t see Liverpool nor Chelsea nor Man Utd nor Spurs - they see ENGLISH (one Italian source with regard to Ferguson’s and Man Utd´s comments said that he was surprised that a country who caused Heysel was giving pre-match warnings to their fans about Rome!).  Any punishment handed out, any prejudice received will be for all of us - even in the worst case scenario that could include those that compete in Europe next season.

When some Manchester United fans retaliated to the bottle throwing of the Roma fans they were gratuitously beaten even when lying on the floor – their provokers not even receiving a finger wagging from their own Police force.  The Manchester club also recently suffered at the hands of the French Police in Lens where they were battened and tear gassed whilst trying to avoid a crush.  

Roma fans have “form” as Liverpool and Middlesbrough fans can testify.  The majority of away fans walk to the Olympic Stadium which is located in the centre of the city.  Roma fans have the cowardly tactic of standing around casually and then running up from behind and stabbing rival fans in the buttocks, their victims always being among small groups and even middle-aged supporters.  The police know this goes on and where the attacks take place yet do absolutely nothing about it.  Even some English journalists were punched and abused.

Spurs fans had their fair share last night in and around Sevilla´s Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán Stadium.  About two dozen riot police baton-charged them and the fighting apparently went on for some time despite the fact that quite a few tried to act as peacemakers with the police.  Problem was that in their frustration at being attacked, some were so enraged they foolishly decided to rip up seats and hurl them at their abusers.  According to one report, although only by a tape separated rival fans, there was no animosity.

One Tottenham fan accused the police of being the instigators when they decided to randomly attack fans who were in the concourse to go to the toilet or buy food.   Another fan was even beaten whilst trying to take a picture of the team bus! 

“They just started battering people, they’re like animals, it was disgusting.  I’ve been to matches all around Europe and I’ve never seen anything like it. I saw people on the ground getting hit,” one Spurs fan was quoted a saying.

What can UEFA do about this though?  They have no power over the Italian or Spanish Police but they can put the respective clubs to task for not controlling their own fans as they did recently against Feyernoord.  Admittedly, in the case of some Latin clubs legal matters can be more complicated as many of their stadia are owned by the local councils.  It is a frustrating situation where corrupt and insufficiently trained police just waiting for the slightest excuse to crack a few English heads will go unpunished.

Uefa communications director William Gaillard said: "We will be waiting for the delegate's report and the control and disciplinary body will be looking at the television images to see the dynamics of what actually happened." 

"We are definitely in favour of soft policing, which is clearly the use of stewards who we know can handle a difficult situation probably better than riot police." 

"We are subject to the law so we cannot tell the Italians and other countries where police are in charge of public order in stadia not to enter stadia.  We are just a football authority not a law and order authority."

Now I’m not for one minute pretending that we are little angels when abroad when supporting club or country.  One can often feel embarrassed or ashamed when drunken louts toss their beer around, abuse passers by and cause damage to local property and surely this alone is enough to justify the attitude of the Carabinieri or Guardia Civil?  Well no.  The problem with this eye for an eye type philosophy is that when riot police charge into a section of English fans wielding their battens they are probably harming the innocent majority who’ve come to enjoy a game of football.  “Tough!” I can imagine some of you saying, “We made our bed decades ago and we still have to lie in it!”  Do we though? Hasn´t the behaviour of English fans due to tougher stances by governments and football clubs improved immensely over the years?   Well, yes it has although it’s not gone unnoticed that there does seem to be a element in some clubs travelling away support that are re-attaching themselves again – these need to be urgently sniffed out and eradicated as they will only give more justification for more brutal, unprovoked attacks by Police.

Arsenal, whilst domestically have had their “firm” in the past, they are not what you call “notorious” in Europe. One report mentions that in 2000 in Copenhagen, some hooligan elements travelled with the north London faithful with the sole intention of “doing” a few Turks.  Whether they were actually Arsenal fans or not I’ve no idea but it does illustrate the need to snuff out this vermin.

But it isn’t always the case that British supporters get drunk and cause mayhem.  6,000 Celtic supporters went to the San Siro recently and the trip was incident-free, even though supporters from Scotland can more than hold their own when it comes to drinking.   Lucky?  Because they are a catholic football club in a catholic land?  Surely not?  Who knows!  But it would be nice if it happened more often.

Stadium facilities also have something to answer for although we are human and should be capable of acting like humans (for example, the fact that there are no high nets between rival sets of fans doesn’t mean that therefore it’s ok to throw bottles over does it?) What we should expect though, is that if riot police are to be stationed on the edge of the away section they should also be some numbers by the home section – there isn’t though!  And why?  Because the riot police have absolutely no intention of storming their home fans who have cart blanche to shout what they like, throw what they like and provoke away to their hearts content.  We seem to have a cultural – no – very old fashioned Police philosophy difference here;  The idea is it’s easier to keep peace in the future if you leave your own alone and dish out the truncheon beating to the foreigners.  Now, I know that the Carabineri have no qualms about giving two sets of unruly rival Italian fans the odd sticking but there they could not be accused of discriminating against their own and favouring foreign elements, however, the Roma police are not so zealous these days because, amazingly, three years ago the Roman derby between Lazio and Roma was abandoned when it transpired that both sets of supporters were prepared to temporarily bury the hatchet and attack the Police together!

During any investigation into Latin policing methods it would be interesting to see who these forces are exactly comprised of.  Some traveling fans have said that they’ve seen people in with the police who are “volunteers” with battens. 

“At euro 2004 in Portugal, and there was some minor trouble in Albufiera, there was loads of Portuguese with the police, and all they had was a yellow jacket and a truncheon. later found out these were civilians who had volunteered to help the police. Basically the police had given them rights to hit the English!” said one fan. 

There are photos of so called riot police wearing jeans on some sites  How involved are these Police with the ultras?  How is it they are left alone and have their own tear gas to use against their rivals?

The matter gets only more frustrating when comments from Achille Serra, the Prefect of Rome and head of Police commends his men;

“The stewards were overrun by drunken fans, the police had to intervene.  I was there and from what I saw they followed the established protocol. If you’re going to try and establish order over a drunk, angry mob, you’re not going to do it carrying a bunch of flowers - if anyone can prove that we did something wrong, I will personally open an investigation.”

The mayor threw in his tuppence worth as well;

“I got so upset at the warnings and scare stories issued by Manchester United suggesting Rome was unsafe precisely because it merely heightened the tension. There was no need for that and it probably made things worse. It’s a football match after all.”

But what about our own Police force and their treatment on visiting foreign fans?  Well, they seem to do an excellent job - or is it that the majority of our continental cousins behave impeccably when away from home?  They probably are well behaved to be honest but then they don’t have Fulham Police batten charging them when they’re having a drink outside the ground or in the stadium concourse when buying something to eat do they?  Could you imagine the outcry from the European media and UEFA if Manchester Police stormed into the away end at Old Trafford, clubbing Lille fans and firing tear gas into their section because they taunted Manchester United fans?  Can you picture a Liverpool crowd control policeman beating a Spanish supporter repeatedly as he lays on the ground motionless?  We’d be vilified for years on end and probably brought up on human rights issues in the European courts.

The Supporters Trust have offered to support Manchester United fans who suffered in the violence during this weeks match in Roma and a European governing body is hopefully going to investigate complaints from Rangers fans who were beaten by Spanish police in Pamplona for the Osasuna match. 

An RST spokesman said: "UEFA's priorities are back to front.  Clubs are fined heavily for minor rule infractions, yet UEFA allow clubs to participate in their competitions with substandard stadia, inadequate stewarding, poor segregation, and policed in a way which would embarrass a dictatorship.” 

"UEFA must enforce their own regulations consistently and stop letting commercial considerations over-ride their basic duty to protect the health and welfare of football supporters.

"Manchester United have already stated that "…the clubs view is that there was a serious over-reaction, local police handed out indiscriminate beatings to United supporters. In those circumstances, neither Manchester United, nor AS Roma is able to call the police to account.

"As a result, the club warmly welcomes the government examination of the incidents and will collect witness statements from fans to submit to the Home Office."

There was an interesting piece by Henry Winter in today’s press; “Italian riot police do not need to look at CCTV to establish the identities of the trouble-makers in Rome on Wednesday night. They just need to look in the mirror.”

Well, I’ll be in the Mestalla on Tuesday night – at least I hope I make it in there and don’t suffer the same fate as many Manchester United and Spurs fans have done this week.