Can the British method help to stamp out hooliganism?
OFFICIALS FROM the police, government and football clubs will travel to England in January in an effort to get advice from experts on how to beat the problem of violence at football grounds on the island once and for all.
But will the trip be successful or is Cypriot football in a downward spiral?
Last Thursday, Justice Minister Doros Theodorou met with British High Commissioner Peter Millet, who recently offered Britain’s help after serious violence erupted during a match between AEL Limassol and APOEL. During the fracas a police officer died from a heart attack and 27 people were injured three weeks ago.
A legal adviser for the English Football Association (FA) yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that the major turning point in the war against hooliganism was a result of rapid government intervention.
“First of all, to combat football violence you need to have the full backing of the government and the government has to make sure that the punishment for those responsible fits the crime.
“In England, the police began to properly cooperate with the football clubs so the trouble makers became banned from the football grounds. Closed circuit TV cameras were also implemented at stadiums and undercover police were used to infiltrate the ring leaders of gangs. Another effective tool was tough jail sentences given to those who caused trouble during football matches.”
But it is not just up to the government and the police to resolve the problem of football violence on the island which has for years now plagued the beautiful game, according to the same legal adviser.
“The clubs – and more importantly the fans – also need to have an active role in fending off hooligans and troublemakers. In England, for example, we have the ‘Name and Shame’ and the ‘Wall of Shame’ Campaigns in which troublemakers are publicised either in newspapers, websites or the television and this encourages clubs and fans to act.
“Another productive step was the proper training of stadium stewards, or in some cases fans acting as stewards, to interact with fans as opposed to police officers. It is one thing to have a police officer marshalling fans but it is different to have one of their own people telling them to behave.
“Some fans are antagonistic towards police officers but it is more unlikely that they would attack one of their own fans.”
Anorthosis Famagusta manager, Martin Clark has been watching games in Cyprus for years. He believes lack of communication is one of the biggest problems with football on the island.
“The problem in Cyprus is that the police, the clubs and the government are not on the same wavelength when tackling the problem of football violence. I believe that police officers need to get much tougher at football grounds because it appears that some of them are wary of perhaps arresting the wrong person or basically intervening in matters where the law is being broken.
“How many times have we seen police just standing around and looking when fans are being attacked or fans are shooting flares or throwing objects like bottles onto the pitch?”
But a simple trip to England will do little to tackle the problem says Clark.
“I don’t think we will find the problem by all flying over to England and telling them ‘hey, we have this problem and that problem with Cypriot football’.
“What we need to do is hire some experts from England to fly out to Cyprus and totally evaluate the problem here. These experts would need to actually go to the stadium, speak to police officers and draw up conclusions on what needs to be changed here.”
Millet yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that experts would most likely be coming to Cyprus as well.
“There is always the need to have the best evaluation to tackle the problem. On this occasion, I believe that we will have a case of both. A small team of Cypriot experts will fly to Cyprus and then I am sure that some experts will fly to Cyprus to assist here as well.
He added, “The British government can offer a help in hand in battling the problem but the overall problem has to be dealt with by the Cypriot government.”
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