Nothing to hide, nothing to fear? Tackling violence on the terraces

Abstract

Ever since the 1980s hooliganism has been one of the major recurring sources of political and juridical concern; attempts to impose control have been constant, through legislation, new policing strategies, and media excoriations of disorderly supporters. Football hooliganism has made it possible for the police to introduce and normalize new far-reaching strategies of control enabled by new surveillance technologies. While there has been a traditional antipathy to surveillance, the creation of a moral panic around football-related disorder served to market a solution that has symbolic rather then pragmatic utility. The population at large seems to have welcomed the movement based on the motto: if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. The creation and refinement of new technologies has intensified surveillance of football supporters – capturing violent as well as non-violent supporters alike. The aim of this essay is to reflect on the implications of the increasing surveillance.

Notes

¹ See John J. Woodward, ‘Super Bowl Surveillance’. http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP209/. ‘Cameras scanned fans for criminals’, St. Petersburg Times, January 31, 2001; ‘Super Bowl security a massive effort’, The Washington Post, January 29, 2007.

² David Murakami Wood, ed., ‘A Report on the Surveillance Society’. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_11_06_surveillance.pdf. Leon Hempel and Eric Töpfer, ‘Videoüberwachung in Europa’ [Videosurveillance in Europe]. http://www.ztg.tu-berlin.de/presse/URBANEYE_Abschlussbericht_Zusammenfassung_dt.pdf.

³ Guttmann, Sports Spectators.

⁴ Armstrong and Young, ‘Legislators and Interpreters’.

⁵ http://www.datenschutzzentrum.de.

⁶ https://www.datenschutzzentrum.de/allgemein/wmticket.htm.

⁷ http://www.foebud.org/rfid/wm-tickets-absurd.

⁸ See Greenfield and Osborn, ‘When the Writ hits the Fan’, 242.

⁹ http://www.foebud.org/rfid/die-fussball-wm.

¹⁰ http://www.foebud.org/. In all 5.4 million applications were sent in. (http://www.bbv-net.de/public/article/aktuelles/sport/fussball/nationalelf/83432).

¹¹ The fact that no VIPs were to register their details in regard to the tickets they were handed out supports this belief.

¹² http://de.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/2006_fifa_ar_de_1768.pdf.

¹³ Bauman, Liquid Fear. The paradox is, according to Zygmunt Bauman, that modern technology, which was to have made our lives easier, safer and more comfortable, has ended up making the world unsafe and unstable.

¹⁴ Furedi, Culture of Fear Revisited.

¹⁵ Bauman, Liquid Fear.

¹⁶ Thompson, Moralsk Panik.

¹⁷ Svendsen, Frykt.

¹⁸ Cohen, Folk Devils.

¹⁹ Deleuze, Forhandlinger, 212.

²⁰ Cohen, Visions of Social Control.

²¹ Lyon, Surveillance Society.

²² Cohen, Visions of Social Control.

²³ Marx, Undercover.

²⁴ ‘Urteil. Verwaltungsgericht des Saarlandes. 01.06.2006’ [Decision. Administration Court of Saarland]. http://www.fcc-supporters.de/pdf/Urteil_Verwaltungsrechtsstreit_Saarland.pdf.

²⁵ For an overview see Berman and Danby, The Football (Disorder) (Amendment) Bill.

²⁶ Peitersen, Dem der ikke hopper…, 166.

²⁷ Armstrong and Giulianotti, ‘From Another Angle’, 126ff.

²⁸ Penn, ‘Football Spectators in English and Italian Stadia’.

²⁹ Foucault, Overvågning og straf.

³⁰ FA Premier League, ‘Crowd Atmosphere at Premier League Matches’.

³¹ Brick, ‘Taking offence’, 161f.

³² Eco, Travels in Hyper-Reality, 19.

³³ Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction in Education.

³⁴ Thompson, Moralsk Panik, 50ff.

³⁵ Justitsministeriet [Ministry of Justice] (2007): ‘Forslag til lov om sikkerhed ved bestemte sportsbegivenheder’ [Proposal for legislation on security at certain sporting events] (http://www.folketinget.dk/samling/20061/almdel/REU/Bilag/600/389027.PDF).

³⁶ Nor should we overlook the fact that it is not unusual for a law established for one particular purpose to end up also being used for others. The same can also be said of surveillance technologies, where the exchange of data using electronic networks means that surveillance set up for a particular purpose is often used for something entirely different.

³⁷ Armstrong and Giulianotti, ‘From Another Angle’.

³⁸ Christie, ‘Forebyggelse’.

³⁹ ‘Fodboldvold på retræte i københavn’, Politiken, December 4, 2007.

⁴⁰ See Goode and Ben-Yehuda, Moral Panics; Thompson, Moralsk Panik; Cohen, Folk Devils.

⁴¹ See the Ministry of Justice, ‘Forslag til lov om sikkerhed ved bestemte sportsbegivenheder’ [Proposal for legislation on security at certain sporting events] of 2007 and the National Police ‘Rapport om bekæmpelse af hooliganisme i Danmark’ [Report on the prevention of hooliganism in Denmark] of 2005 (http://www.politi.dk/NR/rdonlyers/62F50438-6E30-42E3-B1B8-799670A049CB/0/Hooliganismrapport_m_bilag_080305.pdf).

⁴² Peitersen, Dem der ikke hopper…, 160.

⁴³ Armstrong and Hobbs, ‘Tackled from behind’.

⁴⁴ Brick, Taking offence, 167.

⁴⁵ See Stott and Pearson, Football ‘Hooligansim’.