Move to curb football hooliganism in Union

Date: 23/05/1996

MEPs set out their own formula this week for clamping down on football hooliganism as a quarter of a million continental fans prepare to converge on England next month for the European championship.

As a first step, the Parliament is calling on all EU governments to ratify the European convention on spectator violence introduced after dozens of Juventus supporters were killed in the 1985 Heysel disaster.

Taking a lead from the UK, which has already introduced a series of measures to tackle violence, Euro MPs urged the segregation of rival fans, the establishment of controlled ticket sales, bans on racist banners and the sale of alcohol at football grounds, and greater involvement by fans in the running of clubs.

Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti told MEPs that the Commission would support their resolution, which calls for wider cooperation between fan clubs, football organisations and police forces to find a solution to the problem of hooliganism.

German Green MEP Claudia Roth, author of the parliamentary report, insisted that solutions required sensitive policing and the wise use of powers which did not threaten basic human rights, but supported moves to prevent known hooligans with criminal convictions from travelling to matches.

MEPs stressed that football vandalism was a cross-border problem and one which could not be properly tackled by national authorities merely rounding up violent hooligans and sending them home. Instead, offenders should be prosecuted on the spot and banned from grounds.

Former Juventus football star Gian Piero Boniperto, now an Italian Union for Europe MEP, told fellow Euro MPs that he believed the situation had improved considerably since 1985. But he warned that violence could easily return to the terraces.

His words were echoed by French European Radical Alliance member Bernard Tapie. The ex-president of Olympique Marseille confirmed to colleagues that football stadiums were the ideal place for hooligans seeking anonymity and a stage on which to carry out their “terrorist activities”.

The Parliament's strategy, approved by 285 votes to 152, will now be referred to home affairs ministers.