Soccer hooligans face stadium bans across entire EU

Date:17/07/03

By David Cronin

FOOTBALL hooligans banned from stadia in their own EU country would also be forbidden from attending matches in other member states, under a new proposal.

Tabled by Italy's EU presidency, the plan is designed to prevent a repeat of the kind of violence which marred the England-Germany Euro 2000 clash in Charleroi during next year's European Championship in Portugal or the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

The Italians recommend that details of each ban on visiting a stadium imposed on a hooligan in one member state should be provided to authorities in other states which stage matches at international level or between clubs of different nationalities.

In addition, they urge that EU states introduce provisions under criminal or civil law so that individuals on the banned list who try nonetheless to gain access to a stadium can be penalized. Among the measures advocated is so-called preventive detention.

The move follows a recent analysis on football hooliganism across the EU-15, prepared at the behest of the Council of Ministers' working group on police cooperation.

It states that Euro 2004 in Portugal is "an event that requires close cooperation" due to fears that potential troublemakers could pretend to be innocuous tourists.

"This tournament will take place in a country that appeals to holidaymakers, while the neighbouring country, Spain, also attracts many tourists. It is expected that the participating countries will have to make great efforts to trace potentially high-risk fans, or to prevent them from travelling to the matches."

Moreover, the paper states that plans by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to have the knockout phase of the Champions League at an earlier stage than is currently the case could be a recipe for trouble. This idea has been mooted with a view to attracting greater interest in the initial stages of the competition, with the result a higher attendance of hostile supporters between clubs with a traditional rivalry. The paper cites the tense relationship between fans from Leeds United in England and Turkey's Galatasaray, and between Dutch club FC den Bosch and Belgium's Standard Liège as examples of possible flashpoints.

But G14, the umbrella group for top European soccer clubs, rejected the suggestion that more high profile games would be likely to lead to greater hooliganism. "I don't think changing the sporting criteria will influence the sanity or behaviour of the crowd," said spokeswoman Geneviève Berti. "It is a question of the culture and communication around the event."

Data compiled for the Council shows only four EU countries regularly impose stadium bans for hooligan offences. In 2002, Italy had 2,011 bans in place, Britain 1,440, Germany 1,368 and the Netherlands 1,008. The remaining 11 states accounted for just 68 bans between them.

The statistics have prompted civil liberties group Statewatch to query whether the Italian proposal is justified. "Whether an issue which appears to affect four out of 15 EU states is appropriate for a Council decision is open to question," it said.

A proposal from the Italian Presidency would prevent football hooligans banned from stadia in their own country from attending matches in other EU Member States.