List of Offenses

This idea of fan violence seems to have been around as long as sports themselves. It dates all the way back to the Roman empire. In 532 A.D under the rule of Justinian around 30,000 people were killed during a chariot race when a riot broke out between the opposing Green and Blue chariot racing teams. The riots lasted for five days before finally being broken up by the Roman militia. The term most commonly associated with fan violence is hooliganism. Although this term usually refers to soccer hooliganism. Soccer has a long and storied history of rambunctious fans, and is typically seen as having the most violent and dangerous supporters. Especially in England, brawls and fights during a soccer game are seen as completely commonplace. These hooligans even take it as far as to schedule these fights at a predetermined location with organized groups of people. One of the deadliest of these hooligan melee’s occurred on May 29, 1985, during the 1985 European Cup Finals between Liverpool and Jueventus of Italy. The tragedy began an hour before kick off when a large mob of Liverpool fans attacked a group of the Italian fans. The fight pushed back against the stadium wall which caused it’s collapse and ended up killing thirty-nine people, and injuring hundreds more.

While the term fan was actual derived from the word fanatic this behavior seems exceed the simple love and passion for the game by a long shot. In many cases it appears to devolve into pointless violence, and destruction merely for the sake of destroying something. I personally do not see a problem with the usual cheering, yelling, and drinking during or after a game, but when it comes down to car being flipped in the streets, and innocent people being killed something has to be done. And while it is true that sporting events have tried to increase security and police awareness it still seems apparent that more drastic measures must be taken to keep fans, players, and innocent citizens on the street safe. A recent violent tragedy broke out in 2004 during a Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees game. After the winning game of the American League Championship Series a riot broke out on the streets of Boston. Police responded and attempted to use pepper guns to try to disperse the crowds. These pepper guns killed Emory student Victoria Snelgrove after being struck in the eye. It seems obvious that if these actions are left unchecked they will continue to progress, and while you cannot simply tell a fan to not be enthusiastic about his team, something must be done on the security and management end to prevent these events from occurring.

Although it is a necessity to develop a new and possibly harsher system for dealing with these out of control fans. There have been a variety of measures taken in the past to solve this very problem. One of which is setting up so called, “Hooligan checkpoints” in an attempt to prevent these soccer hooligans from entering the match. Although this is a step in the right direction, it is simply not good enough. Hooligans are obviously taking not of this security ramp up, and changing there appearance from the stereotypical hooligan apparel. This is making it harder and harder to actually determine who the hooligans actually are. Another example of past security increases can be seen in college sports. Where schools are being fined for excessive and inappropriate jeering from the crowd, and even larger fines for rushing the field and tearing down goal posts. An example of this can be seen in South Carolina where Joe Solomon of The Birmingham News reports that,”The SEC announced today South Carolina will be fined $25,000 because its fans rushed the court after Tuesday's win over No. 1 Kentucky”. This appears that it would be a very effective measure for preventing this activity from occurring, and strictly on the college level it may have a somewhat meaningful effect. The problem with this particular course of action is that it is only being suggested for the college level, and would be much more difficult to implement on a professional level. Finally one of the solutions being recommended is banning alcohol from professional sporting events. On paper this particular solution actually makes a little sense. Alcohol is a major catalyst to rambunctious fan behavior, and if you were able to effectively stop alcohol from entering these events you could probably solve most of the problems. Unfortunately just as we saw in the days of prohibition it’s just not practical to think that you can completely stop the stream of booze. People will always find ways to sneak it through the gates, and then you have the same problems as before. Not to mention many of these sporting events major sponsors come from alcohol companies. This is true not only in the United States, but in Britain as well, as Stephen Adams reports from the Telegraph, “Football also has a strong association with the industry: more than half the clubs in the Barclays Premier League list beer companies as sponsors.”