United fans pay in blood for Italys loose dogs Gabriele Marcotti The Times April 6, 2007
Anyone dipping into the English and Italian media the day after AS Roma and Manchester United met in the quarter-finals of the Champions League would be forgiven for thinking that there were two largely unrelated matches played at the Olympic Stadium. While the treatment of travelling supporters at the hands of the police made front and back-page news (filled with first-hand accounts, usually by someone describing old men or young women being beaten with batons), here in Italy the press talked of clashes between drunk English hooligans and what are commonly known as loose dogs: thugs loosely associated with the local Ultras, who have turned the art of stabbing visiting supporters in the buttocks into an art form. If anything, the law enforcement officials clad in riot gear were praised by Achille Serra, the Prefect of Rome, who is in charge of the citys police. The stewards were overrun by drunk fans, the police had to intervene, he said. I was there and from what I saw they followed the established protocol. If youre going to try and establish order over a drunk, angry mob, youre not going to do it carrying a bunch of flowers. Therein lies the problem. English supporters are not used to such policing methods, whereas Italian fans are familiar with what awaits them in certain stadiums, particularly those sections of the ground that are assigned to the visiting Ultras, or hardcore supporters. Any semblance of civil law or individual rights goes out of the window in those circumstances. You either behave (and hope that those alongside you do the same), or you have to be ready to face a baton charge at the first sign of trouble. Some, those who enjoy the fighting, choose those areas of the ground for that reason. Thus, when some United supporters joined Roma fans in throwing missiles over the partition on Wednesday, and when the bottle-throwing did not cease immediately, all United fans in that area paid the price. This suspension of legality probably worked both ways; the police felt authorised to use whatever methods they liked, and some United fans probably felt free to do things they would not have done at Old Trafford, such as rip up seats, throw missiles and engage in drunken, loutish behaviour. Perhaps what they did not know was that Romes police force have a particularly nasty reputation in that regard. They have clashed heavily not only with English fans but also those of Serie A teams such as Catania and Atalanta. Nor do they discriminate in favour of the local clubs. Three years ago the Rome derby was abandoned when it looked as if Lazio and Roma supporters were about to put aside their differences long enough to take on the police. Effective crowd control has long been a problem for Italian law enforcement and not only in football witness the brutal reaction towards the antiglobalisation demonstrations at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001. Some suggest that it is a combination of ineptitude (modern baton charges are based around the wedge principle, which allows police to identify and separate miscreants from the mob; in Rome, too often, they rely on linear charges, which can result in indiscriminate head-bashing) and the fact that many police forces have a robust, right-wing, authoritarian streak. In that sense, perhaps it should not be surprising that Serra found nothing unusual with the actions of his force. And if anyone can prove that we did something wrong, I will personally open an investigation, he said. Part of the problem is that, whenever English supporters travel abroad, hooligan-mania sets in. The press immediately roll out the worst-case scenario, the local thugs begin salivating at the prospect of taking on the legendary English hooligans and the police put the city on lockdown. Any sense of normality is lost and a militarised reality descends on the city. In that context, nerves quickly fray and, too often, the nightmare becomes real. English fans who travel abroad pay for the sins of their fathers, the hooliganism of the 1970s and early 1980s. This, as much as anything else, seems to be the only way to explain why trouble follows many English clubs around Europe. After all, other clubs some with a sizeable hooligan element seem to be able to travel without incident. Nor is it something that is purely fuelled by alcohol. Celtic took 6,000 supporters to the San Siro last month and Scotland a similar number to Bari ten days ago, yet both trips were incident-free, even though supporters from Scotland can more than hold their own when it comes to drinking. The media also play their part. Episodes of violence are given acres of newsprint and analysed in detail, the opposite of what happens in England. When 11 supporters were stabbed (and 34 arrested) after the FA Cup sixth-round tie between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge three weeks ago, it barely registered in the press. And when 500 West Bromwich Albion supporters attacked police, sending 11 to hospital, after their FA Cup fourth-round derby match away to Wolverhampton Wanderers in January, it also went largely unnoticed. Walter Veltroni, the Mayor of Rome, said that he 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. Its a football match after all. He may have a point. Lowering the tension before the match would have been a good idea. Just as it would have been a good idea to get the police to employ 21st-century crowd control methods rather than the crude protocol followed at the Olympic Stadium. Countdown to chaos The methods used by riot police in the Olympic Stadium on Wednesday meant that confrontation with Manchester United supporters was almost inevitable. Most of the police congregated at the back of the visiting supporters section, with only a handful protecting the no mans land between the United fans and the barrier, behind which the AS Roma Ultras stood. While the police kept a highly visible presence in the United section, they left control of the home fans to stewards Ultras occasionally battle with police before and after games in Italy and the authorities tend to keep the fans at arms length. With no police in their section, Roma supporters rushed to the barrier to bait the away fans when their team scored. When some English fans charged the barrier, police moved in to push them back (third from top). This was when the most brutal scenes took place, with a number of people who were not involved in the surge being caught up in the riot polices advance. Police were now in the United section in force, causing the supporters to back away and chaos to ensue. - Tony Evans http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premiership/manchester_unite d/article1620630.ece [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Please use [email protected] for general discussion. To unsubscribe send a blank message (from the email account in question) to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Join as a full member of IMUSA today: http://www.imusa.org/join.htm Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
