The policing enigma of football fans in Australia

A recent article in FourFourTwo has belatedly touched on an interesting undercurrent to the A-League crowd behaviour debate.

The fact it has been quite clear to the fans in the stands means the word ‘unprecedented’ is a little inaccurate in describing the challenge being faced by Western Sydney Wanderers fans. The phrase ‘back to the future’ is much more applicable than ‘unprecedented’.

This is because the phenomenon observed has been witnessed before, in the A-League’s second season, through the growth witnessed at Melbourne Victory.

Indeed it was clear to many a Melburnian that their city had embraced the A-League early on in a way Sydney had not.

Firstly, it should be recognised (by the football media especially) that the current phase of crowd trouble headlines is nothing new.

Similar to the Western Sydney fans’ ‘passion is not a crime’ protest following disproportionately negative headlines after the second Sydney derby at Allianz Stadium, back in season two the Melbourne Victory fans were incensed by disproportionately negative headlines that clouded the milestone of reaching over 50,000 spectators in a regular season game at Telstra Dome (now Etihad Stadium).

Similar to the ‘passion is not a crime’ initiative, the Melbourne fans came out with an ‘axis of evil’ protest the following home game versus the now defunct New Zealand Knights at the old Olympic Park.

This is without going into the rather simplistic debate over the causes and solutions of A-League crowd behaviour that often occur.

The article touches on the role of the police force, in this case the NSW Police Force.

As part of the debate it needs to be recognised that policing collectively minded football crowds requires a different skill set to policing more individually oriented AFL/NRL/cricket crowds.

What is interesting is the frequent talk of the ‘need’ for a crackdown, a good example was the following ‘crackdown’ article that appeared in the Herald Sun in April.

The article contained the following passage relating to the perspective of then Victorian Acting Assisting Commissioner Rick Nugent:

Mr Nugent said there had been a change in soccer crowd behaviour in recent months ‘inconsistent with the behaviour of supporters in other sporting codes.

“We can have 100,000 people at the MCG for Collingwood and Carlton, but yet you just don’t see the number of incidents per supporter head that you do, unfortunately, in recent times in the soccer,” he said.

This can be considered a good reflection of the lack of understanding that pervades some sections of the security institutions.

As a consequence of football support being articulated differently to support at other crowds, the nature of how anti-social behaviour is articulated in football terms is different to that of other Australian sports.

This is perfectly understandable, as football was a minority sport for so long and crowds of the old NSL weren’t as large as the A-League.

It naturally takes time and experience for the policing know-how to recognise the indicators of genuinely anti-social behaviour and the techniques required to effectively handle it.

It is worth quoting Professor Clifford Stott from the FourFourTwo article at this point, with regards to the talk of ‘crackdowns’ and ‘zero tolerance’ approaches:

“You don’t want to go down the road of a crackdown – because crackdowns can themselves actually create the problems that everyone is seeking to avoid,” he said.

In the above quote, Professor Stott has raised an interesting but regrettably unexplored aspect of the fan behavioural issues.

In reacting to negative media reports, the FFA often talk about a ‘zero tolerance’ approach and over the years penalties have been become increasingly stiffer to the point where there are now five -year bans being handed out for increasingly innocuous infringements of the so-called FFA spectator code of conduct.

Indeed it is the FFA more than the police and stadium security whose approach has been the most disappointing, because they are a football specific institution and are in a position to know better.

During a heated Melburnian-based fan forum held a few years ago I tried to emphasise the crux of the research done by Stott and others to the then A-League chief Lyall Gorman (who is now the CEO of Western Sydney), essentially to understand that football disorder occurs as a result of interaction between groups (eg two sets of fans or a group of fans and a group of security/police personnel).

I then asked whether it would be a better idea for the FFA to engage behavioural scientists (of which Clifford Stott is one), to which there was a spin-doctored response in reply and the FFA have since persevered with their archaic approach, which treats fans as the problem rather than as part of the solution.

New CEO David Gallop has come into the game with an open ear and done some good early work, such as putting an FFA Cup initiative back on track.

But he has continued the similarly dismissive noises as Gorman when it comes to fans concern about the fan management regime.

The Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney fans are the two highest quality sets of active fans in Australia, bringing theatre and a carnival atmosphere to the A-League.

Interestingly they are also the most controversial and the negative headlines have often centred around matches involving these two teams.

This has meant they have increasingly been the target of an FFA crackdown through their Hatamoto consultants (who, unlike consultants like Clifford Stott, have a background which is curiously and even bizarrely in anti-terrorism rather than football crowd management).

It is hardly surprising then to see pushback in the form of silent protests held by Melbourne and Western Sydney fans against Newcastle and Wellington respectively towards the end of the season.

It is worth the FFA considering, despite the negative headlines and the impact unruly active fans supposedly have on passive family type fans, crowds at Western Sydney and Melbourne matches continued to grow throughout the season.

The silent protests were a good reminder that the FFA should think twice before again fundamentally undermining the active fan groups which provide so much exciting theatre at A-League games.

The previous aggressive crackdown was a major factor in the stagnation of crowds that occurred from season four onwards.

In the wake of the negative media articles and the opinions of editorials this season it is worth noting the following line from the FourFourTwo article:

“And despite lurid media reports condemning behaviour by some Wanderers fans – including a much-publicised confrontation with outdoor diners – Stott said Australia did not have a significant problem.”