Football hooliganism is sometimes glamorized and seen as a symbol of oppositions to many things that many people find oppressive. Police, “the man,” and large profit organizations, and disrespectful rival firms may be some of the opposition that they face. The fact of the matter is, football hooliganism is dangerous in many different ways. This blog will address the dangers that football hooliganism can bring not only to the football matches, but also to areas around and far away from the matches as well.

While football hooliganism primarily consists of competitive violence between rival football firms, their violent behavior is not restricted to inter-group fighting, but may include missile throwing, vandalism, attacks on the police and regular fans, or racial abuse. I spoke in another blog about racism so I will not go to in depth about this subject, but I will speak about it again. Racism offends not only the person or group you are aiming the insults to, but also bystanders that hear and are present when the slander is being spoken. Vandalism and the missile throwing will also put innocent people in harm. Hooliganism is not only senseless, but very childish and dangerous as well.

Second, the violent behavior of hooligan groups takes places not only at or in the immediate vicinity of football grounds, but also in other contexts, for example city centers, pubs, clubs or railway stations. The movement of the violence once again puts many innocent bystanders in danger, but also destroys property as well. These acts of violence affect the entire city due to the actions of a few hooligans that best express themselves by fighting. With these fights happening in public places, police need to be called and this further wastes the cities money due to the allocation of police to this incident. Police could much rather be working cases and helping solve crimes, but the violence of the hooligans take them away from their other more important duties.

Third, football hooliganism involves a great deal of symbolic opposition and ritualized aggression, which is easily confused with ‘real’ violence. This aspect of football hooliganism is not dangerous for the public, but dangerous for the football hooligans themselves. The hooligans that create their own groups for the sole purpose to praise their team and bash other teams are walking a very dangerous road. Innocent supporters that don’t know the true society and brotherhood of the hooligans are often looked at rivals and highly sought after to be fought. This misunderstanding can lead to great bodily harm to these mere fan club members who don’t really deserve the beating.

Hooligans live by a code and sometimes they die by a code. Violence is just part of the game that they play to gain respect for themselves and their football club. Innocent bystanders are often a common place in the riots that they create.

References:

http://www.cafyd.com/HistDeporte/htm/pdf/4-16.pdf

"Preventing Football Hooliganism." Footballnetwork.org - "our goal is education". N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Aug. 2010. .