Timing ‘dangerousness’: football crowd disorder in the Italian and Greek press

Abstract

This article seeks to shed light on the reasons beneath the emergence of football hooliganism-related media-orchestrated moral panics. Comparative analysis of the upmarket press coverage of the issue in Italy and Greece from the 1970s onwards reveals that the transforming of football hooliganism into a security threat was to a great extent dissociated from the scale and seriousness of the phenomenon. In both case studies, the change in the way journalists perceived football hooligans was closely associated with an array of social and political factors that were unrelated to football crowd violence. Contextualization of these findings suggests that the gradual replacement of the political origins of this threat-focused perception by apparently depoliticized risk-oriented security threat assessments has played an important role in legitimating liberty-restricting counter-hooliganism policies.

Notes

¹ Brug, ‘Football Hooliganism in the Netherlands’, 175; Dunning, Murphy, and Williams, The Roots of Football Hooliganism; Dwertmann and Rigauer, ‘Football Hooliganism in Germany’, 78–9; Koulouri, Sport et société bourgeoise, 111; Roversi, ‘Calcio e violenza in Italia’, 85–91.

² Cohen, ‘Campaigning Against Vandalism’; Dunning, Murphy, and Williams The Roots of Football Hooliganism, 132–56; Hall, ‘The Treatment of Football Hooliganism in the Press’; Murphy, Dunning, and Williams, ‘Soccer Crowd Disorder and the Press’; Pearson, Hooligan; Whannel, ‘Football, Crowd Behaviour and the Press’.

³ Armstrong, Football Hooligans, 85–104; Crabbe, ‘The Public Gets What the Public Wants’; Murphy, Dunning, and Williams, Football on Trial, 96–128; , ‘Tears, Tantrums and Tattoos’, ‘English Media Representation of Football-related Disorder’; Weed, ‘Ing-ger-land at Euro’.

⁴ Brug and Meijs, ‘Voetbalvandalisme en de media’; Dal Lago and Moscati, Regalateci un sogno; De Leo, ‘La violenza fra rumore e mesaggio’; Louis, Le mouvement ultras en Italie, 134–9; , Sport et violence, 169–72, ‘La construction médiatique de la figure du hooligan dans la presse française’, Football Hooliganism in Europe.

⁵ Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, ‘Campaigning Against Vandalism’; Hall, ‘The Treatment of Football Hooliganism in the Press’.

⁶ Throughout the 1990s, Scottish media tended to ignore any disorder involving Scottish football fans abroad: Finn and Giulianotti, ‘Scottish Fans, Not English Hooligans!’, 197–200.

⁷ Tsoukala, ‘Boundary-Creating Processes and the Social Construction of Threat’.

⁸ Dunning, ‘Towards a Sociological Understanding of Football Hooliganism’, 147–50; Redhead, Post-Fandom and the Millenial Blues, 24–5.

⁹ Poulton, ‘English Media Representation of Football-related Disorder’; Tsoukala, ‘Constructing the Threat in a Sports Context’, Football Hooliganism in Europe.

¹⁰ Hall, ‘The Treatment of Football Hooliganism in the Press’; Taylor, ‘Class, Violence and Sport’; Whannel, ‘Football, Crowd Behaviour and the Press’.

¹¹ Murphy, Dunning, and Williams, Football on Trial, 115–17; Taylor, ‘Class, Violence and Sport’, 71–2.

¹² Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics; , Moral Panics and the Media, Critical Readings; Downes et al., Crime, Social Control and Human Rights; Goode and Ben-Yehuda, Moral Panics; Hall et al., Policing the Crisis; Jenkins, Intimate Enemies; Pearson, Hooligan; Rowbotham and Stevenson, Behaving Badly; Thompson, Moral Panics; Ungar, ‘Moral Panic Versus the Risk Society’; Welch, Price, and Yankey, ‘Moral Panic Over Youth Violence’.

¹³ Tsoukala, Football Hooliganism in Europe.

¹⁴ Aperti, Società; Astrinakis, ‘Subcultures of Hard-Core Fans in West Attica’; Astrinakis and Stilianoudi, Heavy Metal; Balestri and Viganò, ‘Gli ultra’; , ‘Report on the Incidence of Violence at Greek Sports Stadiums’, ‘Football Violence’; , ‘Ermeneutica del calcio’, Descrizione di una battaglia; Dal Lago and De Biasi, ‘Italian Football Fans’, Un certo sguardo; Dal Lago and Moscati, Regalateci un sogno; Francia and Goso, ‘La violenza negli stadi’; Golfinopoulos, You Will Never Become Greek; Louis, Le phénomène ultras en Italie, Le phénomène ultras en Italie; Marani, Indagine sulla violenza negli stadi; Marchi, Ultras, Il derby del bambino morto; Papageorgiou, An ‘other’ Sunday; , ‘Calcio, Tifo, Violenza’, ‘Calcio e violenza in Italia’, ‘Football Violence in Italy’, ‘The Birth of the “Ultras”’; Roversi and Balestri, ‘Italian Ultras Today’; Salvini, Il rito aggressivo; Tsouramanis, The Behaviour of Football Hooligans.

¹⁵ Tsoukala, Football Hooliganism in Europe.

¹⁶ Data come from my personal press archive and from primary research conducted on a regular basis from the late 1980s onwards. For practical reasons, the presentation of each point relies on a selection of quotations that are believed to be representative of its whole coverage. When, for technical reasons, the specific page numbers are not available, I mention the headline.

¹⁷ Methodological choices have been greatly determined by the fact that the present analysis draws on a broader study of press coverage of the issue from the 1970s until today. The latter encompasses, among other countries, France, that is, a country with only one national sports newspaper (L'Equipe) and no tabloids. Hence, for coherence's sake, the whole study excluded both tabloids and sports newspapers.

¹⁸ Football hooliganism emerged in Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands in the early 1970s. By the end of the 1970s, it was also to be found in Germany, Greece and Spain.

¹⁹ Francia and Goso, ‘La violenza negli stadi’, 494, 500; Roversi, ‘Calcio e violenza in Italia’, 93–6; Segre, Ragazzi di stadio, 58, 82–6.

²⁰ Marchi, Il derby del bambino morto, 116ff.

²¹ In 1973/74, for example, incidents were recorded in 31 First and Second Division fixtures (Roversi, ‘Calcio e violenza in Italia’, 93).

²² Roversi, ‘The Birth of the “Ultras”, 361–6.

²³ De Leo, ‘La violenza fra rumore e mesaggio’, 286ff; Roversi, ‘Calcio e violenza in Italia’, 93, ‘The Birth of the “Ultras”, 371.

²⁴ Roversi, ‘Calcio e violenza in Italia’, 86.

²⁵ Il Corriere della Sera, 16 February 1970.

²⁶ La Stampa, 12 January 1976, 12.

²⁷ Borghini, Violenza negli stadi, 42.

²⁸ La Stampa, ‘Ultras, perchè’, 14 November 1978; see also De Leo, ‘La violenza fra rumore e mesaggio’, 291–2.

²⁹ U. Eco, ‘I commandos dello stadio’, La Stampa, 28 March 1975.

³⁰ Il Corriere della Sera, 13 January 1976, 24.

³¹ Its root, tifo, means fandom but also typhus.

³² The image of the rationally acting football supporter was further reinforced by the fact that football hooligans did not tend to act under the influence of alcohol.

³³ De Leo, ‘La violenza fra rumore e mesaggio’, 293; Borghini, Violenza negli stadi, 44.

³⁴ Period characterized by a very high number of strikes in the factories of Northern Italy.

³⁵ Crouch and Pizzorno, The Resurgence of Class Conflict; Della Porta, Social Movements; Gigliobianco and Salvati, Il maggio francese et l'autumno caldo italiano.

³⁶ Della Porta, Social Movements, 58ff; Della Porta and Reiter, ‘Da polizia del “governo” a polizia “dei cittadini”?’, 437ff, Policing Protest.

³⁷ Della Porta, ‘Institutional Responses to Terrorism’, 151.

³⁸ De Leo, ‘La violenza fra rumore e mesaggio’, 288–9.

³⁹ La Repubblica, 16 May 1984, 15.

⁴⁰ La Repubblica, 31 May 1984, 16.

⁴¹ La Repubblica, 5 June 1985, 1.

⁴² La Repubblica, 17 August 1985, 1.

⁴³ Leader of the Christian Democratic Party, and former prime minister.

⁴⁴ Della Porta, ‘Institutional Responses to Terrorism’, 163ff.

⁴⁵ Marchi, Il derby del bambino morto, 88–9.

⁴⁶ In February and September 1984, respectively.

⁴⁷ Papageorgiou, An ‘Other’ Sunday, 51–2.

⁴⁸ Courakis, ‘Report on the Incidence of Violence at Greek Sports Stadiums’, 2–3, 8–9.

⁴⁹ Broussard, Génération supporter; Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia, 7 December 1997, 104–5; Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia 5 September 1999, 90.

⁵⁰ The findings of the study were reported in: Courakis, ‘Report on the Incidence of Violence at Greek Sports Stadiums’.

⁵¹ Vima, 9 October 1988, 39–42; Eleftherotypia, 19 March 1990, 23–5; Kathimerini, 19 January 1992, 13.

⁵² Kiriakatiki Eleftherotypia, 2 November 1986, 46.

⁵³ Vima, 2 November 1986, 42; Nea, 17 February 1988, 16–17; Eleftherotypia, 19 March 1990, 23–5, 10 February 1992, 27–9.

⁵⁴ Nea, 17 February 1988, 16–17; Vima, 17 February 1991, A43.

⁵⁵ Kiriakatiki Eleftherotypia, 2 November 1986, 25; Eleftherotypia, 19 March 1990, 23–5; Vima, 17 February 1991, A41.

⁵⁶ Katsaros, I the Provocateur; as regards the volume of strikes and protests that took place in the 1980s, see also the list posted in < http://web.ku.edu>.

⁵⁷ When they were not only meant to provoke material damage, terrorist attacks were targeted against specific persons, ranging from Greek police officers, judges, businessmen and politicians to foreign senior officials and diplomats.

⁵⁸ Bossi, Greece and Terrorism; Karyotis, ‘Securitization of Greek Terrorism’.

⁵⁹ Vima, 2 February 1997, 29; Kathimerini, 23 February 1997, ‘The Official Cloak of Football Hooliganism’.

⁶⁰ Vima, 17 September 1995, A53.

⁶¹ Tsoukala, Football Hooliganism in Europe.

⁶² Lambropoulou, ‘Crime, Criminal Justice and Criminology in Greece’, 218ff; Spinellis and Spinelli, ‘Report on Greece’, 3.

⁶³ Karydis, Foreign Criminality in Greece; Koukoutsaki, Images of Crime; , ‘Le traitement médiatique de la criminalité étrangère en Europe’, ‘Looking at Immigrants as Enemies’.

⁶⁴ Spinellis and Spinelli, ‘Report on Greece’, 3; Zarafonitou, ‘Insécurité et extension du contrôle social’.

⁶⁵ Paskevopoulos, The Crackdown on Drug Users in Greece ; Magganas, State and Drugs, Zarafonitou, ‘Insécurité et extension du contrôle social’.

⁶⁶ Tsoukala, Football Hooliganism in Europe.

⁶⁷ Tsoukala, ‘Security Policies and Human Rights in European Football Stadia’, Football Hooliganism in Europe. For an analysis of the infringement of the civil rights and liberties of the English football supporters, see , ‘Legitimate Targets?’, ‘Qualifying for Europe?’; Stott and Pearson, ‘Football Banning Orders’.

⁶⁸ Balzacq and Carrera, Security versus Freedom; Bigo and Tsoukala, Terror, Insecurity and Liberty.

⁶⁹ Progetto ultra, Il Manualetto di sopravvivenza del tifoso; for an analysis of the reactions of certain football supporters’ groups, see Louis, Le phénomène ultras en Italie, 141-143.

⁷⁰ Bauman, Liquid Times.