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A-League boss Damien de Bohun came out with a bang last week when he announced sanctions to be imposed on Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers for fan misbehaviour. However, there is just one problem with the decision: the punishments will not change anything.
In the days since de Bohun’s announcement, blow-in ‘experts’ – with little-to-no idea of the fans involved – have filled newspaper columns lauding the Football Federation Australia’s move to dock three competition points from both the Victory and Wanderers, suspended until the end of the current season.
Many have praised the FFA for ‘getting tough’. Some commentators even suggested the magical fix to all this is to just hand out life bans to any one deemed to be a participant in the dramas of December 28, which saw a pre-match fight break out between opposing fans and pyrotechnics ignited inside the stadium.
Because, of course, a prohibition from entering the premises of a football stadium is really going to stop blokes from punching on five kilometres away, right?
As the same old rhetoric seemed to dominate certain media platforms, one could not help but wonder whether anyone had stopped to actually consider identifying the root cause of the issue, particularly with regard to what draws some fans to be involved in these incidents in the first place.
After all, is it not too simple an explanation that people commit certain acts simply because they are ‘criminal’ – virtually implying that they were born such a way, or just woke up and decided to cause violence? And at the A-League, of all places?
Even spokespeople for the policing units who handle A-League matches have contributed to this baseless notion.
Victoria Police Inspector Geoff Colsell was quoted in the Herald Sun yesterday declaring certain “thugs and bullies” are “using A-League football as a vehicle for violence”.
I have little idea how the FFA arrived at the decision to impose these sanctions, yet I am near-certain they did not consider one of the major catalysts for these incidents – something they themselves have contributed to.
Many of the people involved in the ‘misbehaviour’ are those on the outskirts of mainstream Australian football. That is obvious.
They are people who do not fit in to the A-League’s envisaged sit-down, shut-up, wave-your-clappers, family-friendly mentality.
This is not to say they are “thugs and bullies”, though.
Instead, they are people who fit into a different type of mould, preferring to stand up on the terraces, resist control and show unregulated passion.
Authorities, whether it is the FFA or the police, have struggled to work out how to react to these organised movements, which are at their largest in cities like Melbourne and Sydney.
After several years of utilising these supporters for their own ends in the way of promotional materials, the FFA decided in 2008 it was time to crack down on these fiercely independent groups.
A system of compulsory memberships for supporters of the ‘active areas’ was introduced in order to better identify these fans.
While, at around the same time, the FFA hired a now-infamous intelligence firm, Hatamoto, which boasts of being counter-terrorism experts on its business’ website.
Despite a few clashes here and there, the FFA’s response seemed remarkably over-the-top.
Fast forward to today, and FFA’s much-criticised security agency is still contracted.
In the five or so years of their involvement in Australian football, Hatamoto has helped gather ‘intelligence’ on fans, assisting the FFA with deciding who they want in stadiums, and who they do not.
Through an extremely controversial banning system, known for its lack of transparency and justice, it is believed hundreds of fans have been forbidden from FFA-sanctioned matches since 2009.
During his press conference to announce the A-League sanctions last week, de Bohun even bragged – surprisingly enough – that 99 fans had been banned across the country in the last 18 months.
What he conveniently did not mention is that none of these fans have any right to appeal or to review their sentences.
So, without anything standing in their way, the FFA has managed to dish out flimsy and disproportionate banning notices to any fan they may be suspicious of.
In late 2012, a good friend of mine was served a banning notice for allegedly damaging camera equipment at a Melbourne Victory match.
The only issue with the charge levelled at him by the FFA was that he was 15,000km away at the time – with me in Bosnia.
In a very unusual instance, the ban was overturned when protest was made to Melbourne Victory Football Club. Yet, peculiarly, the FFA continues to refuse the implementation of a system where supporters can appeal their prohibition in an official and transparent manner.
Can you imagine the uproar if Victory and the Wanderers were immediately stripped of three competition points last week, without any avenue to appeal the decision? It would be preposterous.
So, if the FFA cannot get away with it against football clubs, why can they do it against football fans?
The list goes on in regards to bizarre cases – most yet to be resolved – including the banning of a supporter who apparently assaulted police at a match, despite being at home 90km away, as well as an unbelievable five-year sanction against a fan who displayed the middle finger to security.
I am sure a similar punishment was handed down to the Heart fan who was photographed – and celebrated in the media in the days afterwards – doing the same to Archie Thompson when the Victory striker scored the winner in the December 2012 derby. Not.
There are a variety of unjust and unexplainable cases of bans, and such mistreatment of supporters by Australia’s football federation has given rise to a complex where sections of supporters have lost all respect for its rules and processes.
It is not rocket science. The docking of competition points will mean very little to a fan who is prohibited from going anywhere near a football stadium anyway.
While I am not absolving the guilt of those partaking in football violence, choosing to impose tougher sanctions is going the wrong way about it.
For change to occur, the fans must grow to respect the competition and federation, and the way in which it coordinates the game.
And the onus for the first step in this process is entirely on the Football Federation of Australia.
Until the FFA takes responsibility upon itself for driving certain fans to behave more radically outside the stadium, the situation will only get worse.
More banned fans will mean more of those willing to unleash their testosterone in the streets.
And do not tell me these people are not lovers of the game. These are people who bleed football. They just do not respect the way in which it is administrated in Australia, and pleading for them to ‘behave’ is going to fall on deaf ears.
So, what is the solution?
Much of the issues could be avoided if the fans involved in the violence possess the hope of re-entering an A-League stadium in the near future. As mentioned, currently, many do not.
So, why not dish out less over-the-top bans, and implement a transparent appeals system while we are at it?
Or, as they do in the justice system virtually all over the world: give fans the opportunity for their fan to be reviewed once, say, 60 percent of it has been completed?
Place them on some form of probation period for the remainder of their ban. This would encourage supporters to stay out of trouble while serving their punishment, and when returning to the stadium.
The FFA enjoy using marketing to promote football devotees as ‘powering the game’, yet this fallacy will not be bought by fans in-the-know until the contempt for certain supporters is ditched in favour of respect.
FFA, the ball is firmly in your court.
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