Passport conditions and bans to stop hooligans
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Here is catch up post to one of the threads form a couple of days ago..Is this more tripe from the British Establishment, or will they finally act...Or are they still the chinless wonders...< NO BAllS >
Ned........
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British Home Secretary Jack Straw announced new measures today to eradicate soccer hooliganism after a weekend of violence involving hundreds of English Euro 2000 fans in Belgium.
Straw rejected criticism that the government had not done enough to prevent the outbreaks of disorder, in a statement to parliament.
But he announced the government would encourage British courts to make more use of their power to impose passport conditions and international bans, whenever that might help prevent hooliganism by England supporters.
The European football governing body UEFA threatened to kick England out of the Euro 2000 finals if there was a recurrence of the violence surrounding England's 1-0 win over Germany in Charleroi on Saturday.
Prime Minister Tony Blair offered his apologies to Belgium tonight over the violence by England supporters.
He pledged Britain would work harder to prevent new acts of hooliganism.
During a 20-minute meeting with Belgian counterpart Guy Verhofstadt at the EU summit in Portugal, Blair extended his apologies and regrets over the violence, the Belgian leader's spokesman Alain Gerlache told AFP.
"The British government will take radical measures to tighten checks in stations, ports and airports to stop suspects from travelling to Belgium," Blair added.
Straw said scrutiny at British ports by law enforcement agencies had been stepped up to prevent any of those deported from Belgium from returning to either Belgium or the Netherlands.
British police had warned all those fans expelled not to attempt to return, said Straw.
Police in Charleroi arrested 450 fans before and after Saturday's match.
Those arrested came from both countries but much of the violence appeared to be caused by England supporters.
But Straw rejected claims by UEFA and the Euro 2000 tournament director Alain Courtois that British Government inaction had contributed to the problems.
Of the 400 people identified by British police since being repatriated by Belgian authorities only 15 were known to police as troublemakers, said Straw.
"It is far more difficult to identify in advance those who might cause trouble if they have not previously committed an offence," he added.
Those who had rioted had "disgraced the nation and disgraced our national game," he said.
But Ann Widdecombe, the opposition Conservative Party spokesman for home affairs, dismissed the Government's response as "woefully complacent and inadequate."
Earlier, after discussions with the Premier League, it was announced that any supporter convicted of an offence would be banned for life from attending football matches in Britain.

The Government have done very little wrong here because only 15 people would have been stopped by measures suggested by either political party here. How do you prevent people from going abroad if you have no proof beforehand that they will cause trouble? As for that triple-chinned cheesemonger Ann Widdecombe, she has no better ideas and has resorted to throwing insults like the rest of the Tory Party seem to http://www.soccergaming.com/ubb/smile.gif
Quite frankly, I have no ideas of how to stop the trouble without the help of HG Wells' Time Machine to go forward, find the troublemakers, and prevent them travelling. Oh, and ban alcohol in 50 mile radii of games. And legalise cannabis. http://www.soccergaming.com/ubb/smile.gif

Oh God. You're Labour.....

Hooliganism - Pure and Simple...

This is another theory about some of the reasons why we are getting this problem...Its a report i just found on the net...Ned.....<Edward>
... ..Black...<Nickname..for being a Guiness drinker.>
Yes, ban booze and legalize the green weed, that sounds like a very good alternative.

When it comes to attempting to decode the complex, deeply buried sociological reasons for football hooliganism, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

It is a particularly dangerous thing when those attempts are made by academics who know little about football and have no understanding of what drives the hordes of fans that follow it and the insatiable parasites that feed on its periphery.

One egghead, heard on a radio program last week, summarised the unfortunate events in Charleroi thus:

“Soccer, because of the deferral of excitement on the field, is open to hooliganism. I do think that soccer is obviously aristocratic in origin in the sense that it requires a lot of self-denial."

"With the restriction of the use of the hands, you have these limited moments of ecstasy in an otherwise rather mundane and dull kind of game. Which gives plenty of opportunities for that semi fascist kind of behaviour on the terraces and in the streets.”

So said Mitchell Dean, head of the department of sociology at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Well, Professor Dean. It seems you have it all sorted out. Permit the use of hands and the problem is solved. Do away with ‘handball’ and football hooliganism is a dead issue.

So off you go Alessandro Del Piero, when confronted by three defenders past whom you cannot dribble, just pick up the ball and run with it.

Suddenly rival fans will smile and embrace in the stands, they will toast and exchange cheers in the bars, old ladies will walk their dogs in safety in city squares and peace and harmony will reign throughout the world.

If it were only so. But, sadly Professor, it is not.

Sadly, this game, this mundane and dull game, began conquering and seducing the world and its hearts over a hundred years ago and there is every sign that, if anything, it is continuing to do so. So where does that leave us, Professor? What do we do now?

Because if the game is sufficiently exciting to conquer the entire world in its current dull form, and invites fascist thuggery in the process, what will happen if we make it less dull and more exciting?

Such as allowing the use of hands, enlarging the goals or modifying the rules whereby, like in basketball and Aussie Rules, goals and points come at the turn of the tap.

Could it be, Professor, that, paradoxically and quite converse to your theory, the thuggery and peripheral crowd violence is in fact a commentary on the game’s magnetism and seductive powers?

After all, what other instance is there where such passions polarise and commit humans to such primitive acts in the name of a game?

The trouble of course is that the good professor has no understanding of football and the totality of its social impact.

Crowd violence in football comes in many forms, as it would given its global popularity. There is the variety where fans invade fields driven by notions of injustice, such as bad refereeing. This is more common in Peru and Paraguay than in England or Germany.

There is the type, of the purely culture-centric variety, such as those in Istanbul or Copenhagen last month, where cultural groups use football as a medium to make racist statements or settle tribalistic scores.

There is the one, common to travelling English fans, where drink poisons the mind and sense of reason and instantatious provocation leads to tribal warfare.

There is the sicko variety of the small groups of genuine hooligans, organised and their activities well planned, who embark on bouts of violence for the sake of its emotional euphoria, with little interest in football.

And finally there is the politically induced varierty, such as the English neo-nazis who put an end to the Ireland-England match in Dublin some years ago or the German thugs who bashed a French policeman to near-death in Lens during France 98.

The one common strand through all this is football. And why football? Simply because it is the the most popular of sports, the world’s premier diversion and mover of masses whose daily dramas are incessently played out on TV screens and newspapers’ front pages.

What better medium could you possible choose through to air your particular, imbicillic grievences?

But football, to get back to the good professor’s misguided thesis, is only the unfortunate medium and not the cause. This year’s English FA Cup final, the last to be held at Wembley, gave us good reason to recall the first final at that venue in the 1920s, when tens of thousands of fans spilled onto the pitch because of overcrowding.

It was later named the ‘white horse final’, after the lone policeman on a white horse who entered the field to usher the fans back behind the perimeter fence.

There were no riots, no disturbances, not a word spoken in anger. Just 130,000 fans trying to get comfortable as they watched a Cup final.

Professor Dean should do his research. Football hooliganism is a relatively modern phenomenon. It germinated in England in the mid-1960s, before which it was unheard of.

Football, as a popular sport, has been around basically unaltered since the mid-1800s. It would be a curious proposition to suggest that it became suddenly so dull and mundane as to trigger a global trend in crowd violence over a hundred years after its birth.





[This message has been edited by Black_Ned (edited 06-21-2000).]

"Oh, and ban alcohol in 50 mile radii of games. And legalise cannabis."

RIGHT ON DRINKY....

If the "hooligans" had been hanging in the hash bars rather than the pubs, the worst thing that would have happened is they would have laid in the fountains of Holland listening to Bob Marley and eating Snikers bars and Doritos until they realized England was going home.
"No woman, no cry......."
Bob was THE MAN and not a bad attackig midfielder himself.

Dont fool yourselves.

There will always be f**kers who ruin matchs (there have been hooligans since 1970s)

It is just getting worse. The much quoted 'English Disease' has spread to Italy and now it seem has spread to Turkey. It is even worse in turkey. In enland it is said it is a small minority, but in Turkey it seem its an overwhelming majority.


Chris

I'm Labour? Hardly. Try 'Sensible', a_shearer. When I do vote, I intend to vote for a local independent candidate who I believe supports the needs of my locality more than anything that happens in Westminster. Aside from that, my point was entirely true - what more can the Government do if only 15 people out of about 1000 could have been stoped from travelling?