Football Hooliganism: Problems and Recommendations

Football hooliganism is “uncivilized fan behavior that actually occurs in and around football grounds” (Marsh S. F., 2006). Bulgaria is a country that struggles with the fight against aggression on the stadiums and racism manifestations by different fan groups. The example from the racism scenes of the fans during the last game between Bulgaria and England and the sanction imposed by UEFA is only one case out of many, which was not handled well by the Bulgarian legislation and football institutions (bbc.com, n.d.). The main issue is that there is a lack of efficient preventive measures that are responsible for the football hooliganism and poor and/or unsuccessful attempts for deterring it. Through the aid of football academic literature and statistics this brief will try to explain the root causes of the problem and how, with the help of successful examples, it can be solved. This paper will provide prevention measures from countries that already made a progress towards football hooliganism.

Main Body

The recommendations for the problems will be based on a successful example from more developed and advanced countries that already made a progress towards this issue. One of the problems is that there are a number of violent and dangerous group of fans such as: The ‘Lauta Army’, CSKA Sofia group ‘Animals”, “Sofia West”, who are part of the fans structures of one of the most popular clubs in Bulgaria and are not easy to handle and deter with regulatory measures (Ford, 2019). The first measure that could be implemented for the purpose of dealing with them is the so-called zero tolerance policy towards the football clubs (Spaaij). What exemplifies that are measures about spreading awareness and knowledge through seminars and lectures to the violent groups at the football clubs with the idea to stop all of their influence around the stadium. The zero-tolerance policy is coming from FC Barcelona, and it started in 2003, with the purpose to minimize and stop the negative influence coming from fan groups such as: Boixos Nois, who were really violent at that time (Spaaij). This could be implemented by the Bulgarian football clubs such as: PFC Levski and PFC CSKA. Through this policy owners, favorite coaches and ex-football players of the biggest clubs can have seminars and talks with the fans in order to calm down the more devoted ones and it will be one of the solutions that is coming directly from the football clubs and residents for dealing with hooliganism.

It should be noted that the problem with the football banning orders is also really staggering due to the minimum amount of them given to the fans. For instance, in football season 2017/2018 the number of football banning orders received by the fans is 84, and according to the explanation of the national police, it is because of the illicit smuggling of a pyrotechnic equipment into the stadiums. Furthermore, according to the statistics of the Home Office, at the same time in England for season 2017/2018, football banning orders were given to 1,822 fans, which demonstrates the differences in the approaches between the two countries (Petrova, 2019) (Office, 2018). The recommendation for the Football Banning Orders (FBOs) will be more efforts and attention to that measure, and tougher and stricter attitude to every person who is dangerous for the peaceful atmosphere on the stadium. The solution will be to bring attention and focus of the policy-makers, who can demand to the authorities to be tougher and uncompromising with the distribution of the FBOs to the hooligans. According to experts, the biggest nightmare for a football fan is to be prohibited to attend the match of his favorite team (David Stead).

Additionally, there is an issue with the Closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV). Only the bigger stadiums, such as the national stadium of Bulgaria ‘’Vasil Levski National Stadium’’, has the required quality cameras and equipment, and some of the stadiums of the biggest clubs, like Ludogorets and CSKA, have it (Nanev, 2018). The recommendation will be taken from the United Kingdom environment, where CCTV was introduced during the 1980s in England (ROWE, 1999). According to some scholars from England, the level of violence in the stadium is declining when there is a CCTV (ROWE, 1999, p. 258). This measure will aid for the problems with hooligans who are engaging in a violent behavior inside football grounds (ROWE, 1999, p. 258). In Bulgaria the solution will be to place and install CCTV in the stadiums of the clubs that are participating in professional or semi-professional football level. The lack of CCTV and technology on the stadiums in Bulgaria is rising and if the authorities take the British model for technology on the stadiums, it will make a big difference. Moreover, CCTV is an effective measure when actions have to be taken after the event (ROWE, 1999). The CCTV can be combined with The Photophone system, that allows the law authorities to exchange images from CCTV or other sources such as computers and phones, which will help the authorities to have clear images of who is attending the match and if it is a hooligan, they will already know that in advance (Marsh P. , 1996).

The next problem is the lack of proactive measures from the police due to their Community-policing strategy of work (Europe, 2004). What was done in England in 1996 for the host of the European Football Championship was the creation of a National Crime Intelligence Service Football Unit, which was emphasizing on gathering information about the hooligans from the reports that were received from the Home Office (Marsh P. , 1996). The solution to the problem will be the creation of a unit that is responsible for the football hooliganism in Bulgaria. Additional recommendation for the police work will be the introduction of the Intelligence-led policing. It involves proactive patters to crime, tactical operations, that will be directed by criminal- intelligence analyst and greater significant attention to intelligence gathering (Ratcliffe, 2016, p. 4). The information focus here is on the profile of the offenders (Ratcliffe, 2016, p. 4). This is critical for the football hooliganism because if one assign a football intelligence officer to follow each team at home and away football games in order to identify problematic vandals, or people who are creating violence and aggression and can be an obstacle for the peaceful environment during the game (Kingdom, 2012). Additional recommendation related to the police for dealing with hooligan’s activities is to use a little bit of spy techniques. This was used by the United Kingdom’s police forces in 1980 with the idea that the police should mingle with the crowd of furious and anger fans (Marsh P. , 1996). This is a technique that is not going to cost a great amount of money and it can be implemented in Bulgaria with the cooperation of the police officers. With the assistance of the Intelligence Department, the officers, that are responsible for the intelligence gathering, would produce a report, which will be send to the Football Intelligence Unit. The aim would be that other police officers would be able to see the report; thus, it will be useful for the creation of the risk assessment of the behavioral patterns of the fans (Kingdom, 2012).

There are issues with the stewards on the stadium as well. The problem with them is that even though they are helping with their job, they lack the professional training that is required. A great recommendation is training programs as the ones in the United Kingdom (Kingdom, 2012). If the practice of trainings is implemented in Bulgaria, this could help to solve the problem with them, which would additionally contribute to the fight against the vandals and their deterrence.

Last but not least, is a general feature of the hooligans, who are using the social media for communication about time and place where they will meet or for the promotion of the hooliganism manifestations (Nikolic, 2016). An effective and simple solution to this problem is to hire a person, who would search through different forums and observe what is happening and discussed there, mainly about future plans and ideas. This measure does not cost a great amount of money, but it is very time consuming.

Conclusion

It can be concluded by the stated issues and eventual recommendations that Bulgaria struggles with the fight against hooliganism and the sanctions imposed by UEFA only proves it. With the measures proposed, the big angle of the problem was covered. The zero-tolerance policy should help the clubs to start working and helping the authorities with seminars and non-tolerance of the aggressors; the “FBO” have to be implemented more common and usually; the number of CCTV need to be increased; the police need to revamp its ways and start using Intelligence-Led Policing, while the Stewards need to have trainings and educational knowledge how to do their job; also, the social medias manifestations need time and patency to be done. This summarizes the solutions and that it is possible to have a good atmosphere in the stadium, if attention is placed to the problems.