Fan Violence Still Serious on Anniversary of Stadium Disaster

A year after rampaging fans killed 39 soccer spectators at the European Champions’ Cup final here, soccer and violence remain intertwined.

Scenes of spectators trampled to death at that May 29 final between English champions Liverpool and Italian champions Juventus of Turin prompted soccer officials to study ways of ridding the world’s most popular sport of mindless violence.

The results have been mixed, partly because the question of who is responsible to control violence--the teams or police--remains unanswered.

Relatively little violence occurred in the past year during international matches. But national league games throughout Europe were marred by problems in and near stadiums. Some examples:

-- In Italy, a helicopter had to rescue a referee, who was besieged by angry fans, from a stadium in Pisa.

-- Fans of the London team, Millwall, left a calling card next to a victim whose throat had been cut: “Congratulations, you have just met Millwall.”

-- At the French Cup final, fans destroyed 291 seats.

-- Liverpool fans threw bricks and sprayed acid at players and fans of rival Manchester United.

-- In fighting in four Dutch cities, 85 people were arrested and 40 injured, including a fan who was stabbed. A home-made pipe bomb was thrown into a stadium stand but failed to explode.

-- Fans in Bilbao, Spain, chased police off the field after the referee made a bad call. Thirty people were injured.

After the Heysel tragedy, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), European soccer’s ruling body, banned English teams from European competition and since has extended the ban by one year. Rowdy fans among the thousands of Liverpool supporters at the match were blamed for the violence.

The feeling in Europe is that soccer hooliganism is a British phenomenon. It “blew over to the Netherlands and West Germany” and across the Continent in the early 1970s, Louis Wouters, head of the Belgian Soccer Federation, told a parliamentary inquiry into the Heysel Stadium riots.

The 21 member states of the Council of Europe have drafted a treaty which, if ratified, would force soccer clubs to separate rival fans, control ticket sales, curb or ban alcohol vending, and search spectators.

Many clubs already separate rival fans but ignore the other points.

“Without the cooperation of the authorities, all efforts by organizers of soccer matches will not be enough to conquer this social phenomenon of aggression,” according to UEFA General Secretary Hans Bangerter, whose organization has endorsed the treaty.

Conversely, Dutch Interior Minister Rudolf de Korte has criticized clubs for spending fortunes on players but leaving stadium security to the police.

The Heysel inquiry found blunders were made all around.

Police security was lacking and the UEFA checked the dressing rooms but not the decrepit stands or a fence Liverpool fans smashed down to charge into a neighboring section of Juventus supporters.

The UEFA refused to testify at the inquiry, which concluded that the organization had a lax attitude before the match.

Since the tragedy, English courts, governments and police have taken the lead in cracking down on soccer hooligans.

A British fan now serves 10 years in jail for several acts of violence; that sentence originally was life behind bars before an appeals court said that was too severe.

The British government is ready to extradite to Belgium a number of people implicated in the Heysel tragedy.

The English First Division team of Luton Town has banned visiting fans. Its own fans must have membership cards, which a computer at the stadium entrance rejects if the holder is known for previous violence.

Closed-circuit cameras scan crowds in many British stadiums and alcohol has been banned.

Officials across Europe blame alcohol for much fan violence, yet beer sales remain a healthy source of income for clubs and stadium operators.

At major European cup games this past season, massive police forces were deployed and few incidents occurred. This police presence has curbed violence inside stadiums but at the same time forced it outside the grounds.

“Police have become more adept at stemming violence in stadiums, but nothing is done about hooliganism itself,” Belgian sports sociologist Jacques Vilrokx said.

“This is certainly a concern because it is harder to guard against hooliganism if you do not know where it is going to happen,” English Football League spokesman Andy Williamson said.

Soccer violence has been linked to Europe’s resurgence of extreme right-wing politics.

In a recent report, the European Parliament found Britain’s extreme rightist National Front was involved in the Heysel Stadium rampage.

A recent police raid on homes of soccer hooligans near London uncovered fascist literature along with a ball-and-chain mace, daggers, medieval-style crossbows, clubs and spiked brass knuckles. It also found National Front literature.

The violence is blamed in part for a drop in attendance.

In Britain, attendance in the past year in the four-division league fell 8% to less than 16.4 million. In Italy, attendance fell to 8.7 million, down from 9.35 million the previous season.

West German tickets sales were the worst in years--5.5 million, half a million fewer than the previous season. Sweden’s league attracted 653,537 spectators, down 3%.

Officials are reluctant to put the blame strictly on hooliganism and point to a decline in the quality of soccer.

English soccer always has been a crowd-pleaser, and its absence from European competition is missed by some. Francesco Morini, the director of Juventus, has asked the UEFA to readmit English teams to Europe as soon as possible.

“We hope when UEFA welcomes back English clubs, Liverpool can come back immediately,” he said. Once the UEFA ban on English teams is lifted, Liverpool still must serve another three year’s on the Continent’s sidelines.

Carl Nielsen, chairman of the Danish soccer federation, agrees. “For the sake of soccer, it is absolutely necessary that English clubs again be included in international tournaments,” he said.

Such feelings are not unanimously shared. English soccer officials oppose an early return of their teams to European competition.

“The time is not yet ripe,” Football Association Chairman Bert Millichip said.

Added Liverpool chairman John Smith: “There would certainly be more crowd trouble and we could be thrown out forever.”

Wouters of the Belgian federation said the ban must stand, “As long as we have no certainty that games against English teams can take place without enormous damage.”

Belgian state police chief Robert Bernaert, who was harshly criticized by the parliamentary inquiry into the Heysel disaster, warned a return of English teams would lead to unacceptable security arrangements.

“To transform a stadium into isolated camps, yes, concentration camps, is . . . unthinkable in a democratic society,” he said.