Comments on: The day Cypriot football conquered the Greeks

By: Con Stamocostas

Con Stamocostas — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:34:12 +0000

It’s not just football that drives fans crazy in Europe. A lot of the big football teams in Europe have basketball and European handball teams and the hooliganism spreads into those sports. It’s not rare to see fights and flares going off at basketball matches.

I guess it thousands of years tribalism and good old fashion hate for the other team. Usually it’s as simple as north vs south, east vs west and rich vs poor.

By: dasilva

dasilva — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:12:54 +0000

What they say about sports? War minus the shooting

We don’t see fighting like that in AFL and Rugby as Australia is quite a peaceful countries and have relatively less ethnic tensions. Its just the fact that countries with lot of class/ethnic tension has football as the most popular sports and therefore used football as a proxy for class and ethnic warfare. If there was a lot of say interstate tension or clubs being define as a rich or poor or a particular race in AF/l and Rugby (thankfully there isn’t) and Australia probably would see more of those violence. Unfortunately in Football there are ethnics clubs and some race has strong animosity with other races, You can’t take it out in the real world so you take it out in the football field.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:01:19 +0000

Tah, Greg Bird.

By: True Tah

True Tah — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:59:45 +0000

Con,

which rugby player glassed his girlfriend?

Re: crowd violence, the worst offenders are East Europeans (Serbia, Slovenia, etc.) and Spanish given their behaviour towards Africans…its not restructed to futbol, as Lewis Hamilton was heckled by the Spanish at a GP race there.

Re: East Europeans, I guess their countries are largely homogenous, and I guess there are not large numbers of immigrants from outside Europe, they are probably a bit insular, relative to England, France and Germany.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:49:25 +0000

The key difference there is that hooliganism is often very well organised.

By: Con Stamocostas

Con Stamocostas — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:47:40 +0000

not sure why people hooliginise Spiro but i suspect it is the same part of the brain that makes teenagers throw rocks at cars on the highway, or rugby and afl players that glass their girlfriends.

sometimes people go crazy without reason or logic.

maybe as simple as boredom at the game no action.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:26:51 +0000

Spiro, there is nothing per se in football that creates football hooliganism. Perhaps in countries like Russia or Croatia where there has been recent internal strife football is very tribal, and thus there is a regional pride. However If you were to examine British football hooliganism some of Britain’s most notorious hooligans wouldn’t even watch the game. Some would, whilst others would plot up in a pub waiting for the post-match extremities. Whilst some would undoubtedly hang on geographical steretoypes and take great pride in their team others, perhaps the majority, were involved purely for the ‘knuckle’ and wouldn’t even know the offside law. It shouldn’t be forgotten that hooliganism originated in GB and its genesis lay in a reaction to society and politics. All other European varieties, as copycat versions, had to draw on their own motivation and thus it is too simple too suggest that hooliganism is a natural conclusion of football.

By: Spiro Zavos

Spiro Zavos — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:41:39 +0000

Fascinating stuff, Con. I still don’t get it with the ultra extreme and often violent behaviour by football fans. It’s as if the game is a proxy for the sort of warfare they’d really like to have, and indeed sometimes put on with the opposing spectators. What is it in football that produces this sort of behaviour?