Latest news with #hooliganism
Reuters
5 days ago
- Reuters
Greek probes into soccer hooliganism find links to drugs, extortion and arson
ATHENS, June 16 (Reuters) - When a police officer died after clashes with hooligans outside a women's volleyball match in Athens in December 2023, authorities vowed to end the violence and criminality that have plagued Greek sport for decades. Police launched probes into the hooliganism that killed George Lyngeridis and that had moved beyond soccer stadiums, but also into links between some violent fans and criminal gangs. These links, they believed, were ramping up the aggression. While the vast majority of sports fans in Greece are peaceful, evidence collected by police and seen by Reuters alleges hardcore fans, who follow their clubs across different sports, were involved in smuggling drugs, or linked to gangs extorting protection money from businesses and arson. "[The gangs] used sports as an alibi," Sports Minister Yiannis Vroutsis told Reuters. "They used clubs as a cover for their illegal acts." Police have made dozens of arrests, with the latest coming on Monday. The fan groups' hierarchies and discipline "offered the conditions for criminal organisations to thrive within them," Supreme Court Prosecutor Georgia Adilini has said. Police officials told Reuters gangs can emerge within fan groups or infiltrate them to sell drugs, or seek new recruits. On December 7, 2023, some fans of Olympiacos soccer club moved a bag of flares and makeshift explosives from a storage room at their soccer stadium to the venue for a women's volleyball derby against Panathinaikos, a police probe found. "We'll kill you!" the crowd shouted, according to prosecutors, during an attack on police that led to the fatal injury of Lyngeridis, who was hit by a flare. Last month, a Greek court convicted a 20-year-old Olympiacos fan of manslaughter and gave him a life sentence. Lyngeridis' mother Evgenia Stratou said her policeman son never expected to be in such danger. "That day, it wasn't that simple. They were organised, coordinated." In a separate investigation, dozens of Olympiacos fans have been charged with setting up a gang, extorting street vendors, possessing weapons and orchestrating assaults. They have denied wrongdoing, their defence lawyers have said. The soccer team's official fan club Gate 7 has condemned the attack and said it has never incited violence. The investigation extended to the top echelons of the club and Evangelos Marinakis, chairman of Olympiacos soccer club, is set to stand trial in the coming months with four board members. They face misdemeanour charges related to inciting sports-related violence and of abetting a criminal group. Marinakis and the other board members deny any wrongdoing or knowledge of criminal activity. Marinakis' lawyers declined to comment to Reuters on the case for this article but have called the accusations completely baseless in the past. Olympiacos has said it takes an unwavering stance against all violence. Gate 7 member Akis Vardalakis, 58, called the case a government witch hunt. But he noted a rise in aggression around sport. "Sports fandom is a mirror of society," he said. In July 2024, police dismantled a ring extorting protection money from at least 76 Athens restaurants and night-clubs. The gang was also hired by Panathinaikos fans to attack fellow team fans in a war for control, police allege in the documents. Panathinaikos' only legal fan club PALEFIP condemns all violence and vets new members, its president Gerasimos Menegatos said. PALEFIP could not comment on the extortion, he added. In December 2024, police dismantled a gang that imported cocaine and cannabis from Spain. Among core members were allegedly fans of soccer team AEK, previously involved in violence and robberies, the documents stated. In 2020-2021 alone, the group imported about 1.4 tonnes of cannabis and 30 kilograms of cocaine. Their estimated profits topped 7 million euros ($8.07 million). George Katsadimas, a legal representative for AEK's fan club, said the case did not concern the fan club but a few individuals who also support the team. The legal fan club condemns any form of violence and its members are not involved in any illegal activity, he said. Last month, police arrested 24 people, allegedly fans of soccer team PAOK in the northern city of Thessaloniki, accused of selling drugs at matches. "The alleged criminal group, which included some random PAOK supporters but also individuals who were not related to sports, has no link at all to the PAOK soccer team or its fan club," said lawyer Ilias Gkindis, who represents the fan club. Those in the legal fan club have nothing to do with illegal acts. "They are people who passionately love sports and believe that criminal activity, particularly drug-related, has no place in the fan club or in sports fandom," he added. Greece's judicial system has several preparatory stages and the compilation of charges does not necessarily mean an individual will face trial. Older fans said they noticed a rise in aggression since the 2009-2018 debt crisis, that left a young generation without work and with little prospects. "Sports fandom has always been a hybrid space," said Anastassia Tsoukala, a security and sports violence analyst and former associate professor of criminology. A young person can develop other affiliations within a group of fans, and may be pushed into crime in the desire to belong more deeply to a group, climb its hierarchy and make a living, she said. Greece in recent years cut the number of legal fan groups from dozens to just eight, increased stadium security and toughened penalties for clubs and sentences for hooliganism. Since February 2024, some 96 soccer matches have been played behind closed doors and authorities imposed fines worth about 1 million euros on clubs, according to government sources. Police monitor around 300 "high-risk" hardcore fans in each major club, a police source said. Vroutsis said reforms have been successful, while analysts argue brawls have merely shifted beyond the soccer stadiums. Police data shows 700 cases of sports-related crime annually. Critics and victims of the violence say more needs to be done. "Unlike other European countries, in Greece we have never adopted primary prevention. We have never looked at the profile of perpetrators to reduce that type of criminality in the long term. We are only focused on repression," said Tsoukala. Among those campaigning for change is Aristidis Kampanos, who went into politics after his son Alkis was stabbed to death in August 2023 in Thessaloniki. He was one of three people killed in sports-linked violence in 2022-2023. "The clean-up I want is not just a job for the state. We must all participate, including club presidents and fan clubs." Sport must be put back in the hands "of families, pure fans, and those who truly love soccer," he said. ($1 = 0.8669 euros)
CNA
5 days ago
- CNA
Greek probes into soccer hooliganism find links to drugs, extortion and arson
ATHENS :When a police officer died after clashes with hooligans outside a women's volleyball match in Athens in December 2023, authorities vowed to end the violence and criminality that have plagued Greek sport for decades. Police launched probes into the hooliganism that killed George Lyngeridis and that had moved beyond soccer stadiums, but also into links between some violent fans and criminal gangs. These links, they believed, were ramping up the aggression. While the vast majority of sports fans in Greece are peaceful, evidence collected by police and seen by Reuters alleges hardcore fans, who follow their clubs across different sports, were involved in smuggling drugs, or linked to gangs extorting protection money from businesses and arson. "[The gangs] used sports as an alibi," Sports Minister Yiannis Vroutsis told Reuters. "They used clubs as a cover for their illegal acts." Police have made dozens of arrests, with the latest coming on Monday. The fan groups' hierarchies and discipline "offered the conditions for criminal organisations to thrive within them," Supreme Court Prosecutor Georgia Adilini has said. Police officials told Reuters gangs can emerge within fan groups or infiltrate them to sell drugs, or seek new recruits. On December 7, 2023, some fans of Olympiacos soccer club moved a bag of flares and makeshift explosives from a storage room at their soccer stadium to the venue for a women's volleyball derby against Panathinaikos, a police probe found. "We'll kill you!" the crowd shouted, according to prosecutors, during an attack on police that led to the fatal injury of Lyngeridis, who was hit by a flare. Last month, a Greek court convicted a 20-year-old Olympiacos fan of manslaughter and gave him a life sentence. Lyngeridis' mother Evgenia Stratou said her policeman son never expected to be in such danger. "That day, it wasn't that simple. They were organised, coordinated." FANS CHARGED In a separate investigation, dozens of Olympiacos fans have been charged with setting up a gang, extorting street vendors, possessing weapons and orchestrating assaults. They have denied wrongdoing, their defence lawyers have said. The soccer team's official fan club Gate 7 has condemned the attack and said it has never incited violence. The investigation extended to the top echelons of the club and Evangelos Marinakis, chairman of Olympiacos soccer club, is set to stand trial in the coming months with four board members. They face misdemeanour charges related to inciting sports-related violence and of abetting a criminal group. Marinakis and the other board members deny any wrongdoing or knowledge of criminal activity. Marinakis' lawyers declined to comment to Reuters on the case for this article but have called the accusations completely baseless in the past. Olympiacos has said it takes an unwavering stance against all violence. Gate 7 member Akis Vardalakis, 58, called the case a government witch hunt. But he noted a rise in aggression around sport. "Sports fandom is a mirror of society," he said. EXTORTION, DRUGS In July 2024, police dismantled a ring extorting protection money from at least 76 Athens restaurants and night-clubs. The gang was also hired by Panathinaikos fans to attack fellow team fans in a war for control, police allege in the documents. Panathinaikos' only legal fan club PALEFIP condemns all violence and vets new members, its president Gerasimos Menegatos said. PALEFIP could not comment on the extortion, he added. In December 2024, police dismantled a gang that imported cocaine and cannabis from Spain. Among core members were allegedly fans of soccer team AEK, previously involved in violence and robberies, the documents stated. In 2020-2021 alone, the group imported about 1.4 tonnes of cannabis and 30 kilograms of cocaine. Their estimated profits topped 7 million euros ($8.07 million). George Katsadimas, a legal representative for AEK's fan club, said the case did not concern the fan club but a few individuals who also support the team. The legal fan club condemns any form of violence and its members are not involved in any illegal activity, he said. Last month, police arrested 24 people, allegedly fans of soccer team PAOK in the northern city of Thessaloniki, accused of selling drugs at matches. "The alleged criminal group, which included some random PAOK supporters but also individuals who were not related to sports, has no link at all to the PAOK soccer team or its fan club," said lawyer Ilias Gkindis, who represents the fan club. Those in the legal fan club have nothing to do with illegal acts. "They are people who passionately love sports and believe that criminal activity, particularly drug-related, has no place in the fan club or in sports fandom," he added. Greece's judicial system has several preparatory stages and the compilation of charges does not necessarily mean an individual will face trial. LEGACY OF DEBT CRISIS Older fans said they noticed a rise in aggression since the 2009-2018 debt crisis, that left a young generation without work and with little prospects. "Sports fandom has always been a hybrid space," said Anastassia Tsoukala, a security and sports violence analyst and former associate professor of criminology. A young person can develop other affiliations within a group of fans, and may be pushed into crime in the desire to belong more deeply to a group, climb its hierarchy and make a living, she said. Greece in recent years cut the number of legal fan groups from dozens to just eight, increased stadium security and toughened penalties for clubs and sentences for hooliganism. Since February 2024, some 96 soccer matches have been played behind closed doors and authorities imposed fines worth about 1 million euros on clubs, according to government sources. Police monitor around 300 "high-risk" hardcore fans in each major club, a police source said. Vroutsis said reforms have been successful, while analysts argue brawls have merely shifted beyond the soccer stadiums. Police data shows 700 cases of sports-related crime annually. Critics and victims of the violence say more needs to be done. "Unlike other European countries, in Greece we have never adopted primary prevention. We have never looked at the profile of perpetrators to reduce that type of criminality in the long term. We are only focused on repression," said Tsoukala. Among those campaigning for change is Aristidis Kampanos, who went into politics after his son Alkis was stabbed to death in August 2023 in Thessaloniki. He was one of three people killed in sports-linked violence in 2022-2023. "The clean-up I want is not just a job for the state. We must all participate, including club presidents and fan clubs." Sport must be put back in the hands "of families, pure fans, and those who truly love soccer," he said.
The Independent
29-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Forty years on from Heysel: The lessons football still needs to learn
The Heysel disaster embodied what were the darkest days of football. Four decades on, there are still lessons to be learned. The catastrophe took place on the game's biggest stage: the 1985 European Cup final, contested between Liverpool and Juventus. On that tragic day in Brussels, 39 fans lost their lives while 600 were left injured after fans were crushed against a wall that collapsed. Abject failures in crowd management and poor stadium design were at the heart of the disaster, as they were for the calamities of Hillsborough and the Valley Parade fire that same decade. Among the three, Heysel is somewhat the forgotten tragedy, despite its seismic short and long-term impact. There was a widespread perception that Liverpool fans were solely responsible, with the crush culminating from crowd disorder sparked by Reds supporters crossing a fence separating them and a neutral stand which contained mostly Juventus fans. Fourteen were later found guilty of manslaughter and jailed. It resulted in English clubs being banned from Europe for five years and fuelled a reputation of English hooliganism that still stands to this day on the continent. Four years later at Hillsborough, where poor crowd management once again devolved into disaster, costing the lives of 97, the fans were blamed once more, almost habitually given the precedent of Heysel. However, the systemic causes of these incidents were yet to be addressed - a problem in fan safety that was being brushed over by simply laying blame at the feet of 'unruly' supporters. After first Heysel and then Hillsborough, learning finally began to flow from catastrophe. 'You get a major disaster like Hillsborough or Bradford, and off the back of that, inquiries get developed - Taylor or Popplewell, for example - and those inquiries then highlight the broader system failure,' said Professor Clifford Stott of Keele University, a specialist in crowds and policing and the co-author of the independent report that delved into the chaotic scenes at the 2022 Champions League final in Paris. 'It was very much about unsafe stadia. Those [inquiries] have created an environment where stadium safety has advanced exponentially over the last 40 odd years.' Post-Heysel, there was a recognition that the failings of the authorities and crumbling state of the Heysel stadium were also key factors at play. However, popular understandings continued to point the finger solely at fans - with hooliganism the far more eye-catching topic to both the public and the media. As such, it was crucial that the narrative moved away from simply citing hooliganism as the overarching cause for such tragedies. 'It is completely useless as a narrative to help us to understand the nature of the problem,' Stott adds. 'What we're dealing with isn't hooligans, it's crowd management, crowd dynamics and crowd psychology.' And as the powers at be finally addressed the core issues, what evolved in the decades after were undeniable improvements in fan safety protocols - which were primarily represented in the Saint-Denis Convention. Adopted by the Council of Europe in 2016 before being officially ratified by the UK government seven years later, this effectively set the framework for how major sporting events should be managed. On paper, this was the solution to years of toil over how to make football universally safe, preventing any future disaster or case of crowd mismanagement. A continent-wide legal instrument, it set out to ensure an integrated, multi-agency approach to sporting events that prevents security from ever overruling safety and service, with no single stakeholder - such as the police - able to address an issue by itself. However, this requirement of international police co-operation for each and every event that goes beyond country lines was - and still is - aspirational, idealistic and massively difficult to implement. 'The ideal situation is the policy agreements that were reached in 2016, and they're still not being realised,' Stott said. And as we've seen across the past few years, there have been numerous shortcomings that have not only led to fan safety being put at serious risk, but also the narrative to regress back to blaming supporters. The 2022 Champions League final was the key case failing, which demonstrated that 37 years on from Heysel, the same problems still existed. Poor communication between stakeholders - something that the Saint-Denis Convention acts to weed out - was rife as the Paris police started acting by themselves, leading to Liverpool supporters being funelled into a bottleneck towards an entrance at the Stade de France that was not fit for purpose. Crowds inevitably begun to overwhelm the police as a result, culminating in fans being tear gassed. Ticketless supporters were then blamed for the ordeal by French authorities. 'There was a focus on public order at the expense of public safety,' Stott said, whose independent report found fans were not responsible for crowd problems in Paris. 'There were a lot of parallels between what went wrong at Heysel and what went wrong in Paris. So despite all of that policy development and learning, ironically, we find ourselves in 2022 in a situation that wasn't that distant from 1985.' Paris 2022 was hardly an anomaly, especially in regard to the prioritisation of order over safety, or indeed the blaming of fans. Just this week, unfounded social media speculation over the Liverpool parade crash spiralled out of control, with some baselessly accusing the fans of enraging the driver who ploughed into the crowd, injuring 79. In Wroclaw ahead of the Europa Conference League final, Chelsea fans were blasted with a water cannon by police after disorder broke out. And earlier this season, ahead of Manchester United's Europa League quarter-final first leg with Lyon, the French police once again resorted to tear gas, claiming it was 'proportionate' to restore calm. Of course, these incidents of rogue, excessive policing do not adhere to the Saint-Denis Convention. Part of the problem remains the reputation around English supporters. After all, many of the key case studies detailing recent failings of the Saint-Denis Convention involve Premier League clubs. A stereotype of dangerous hooligans that come across the channel - something that was hugely exacerbated by the events of Heysel - still exists among fans and foreign police. This is despite, as Stott insists, football culture having vastly changed in this country: 'We don't really have the risk groups operating in the way they did in the past - the legislation has gone a long way to removing that threat.' However, there is still a reflex among European states to load up increased force to prepare for the arrival of English fans, which often devolves into a harsh, unjustified and overblown police response which puts supporters at risk. 'The key problem in the European context is risk assessment,' Stott adds. 'That risk assessment is often not very sophisticated. Say you've got a host police force in somewhere like Italy, Greece or Spain. They'll say: 'Are these fans English?' If the answer is yes, they'd see it as a high risk, and then throw loads of policing resources around it that weren't necessary. The English fans travelling weren't actually going there for disorder, but they get treated as if they were. That dynamic would actually precipitate disorder.' This does not reflect the regulated, 'one approach for all' ideal that the Saint-Denis Convention, a ratified piece of legislation that is meant to tick all the boxes when it comes to fan safety, sets out. That's because at the end of the day, seven years on from the agreement, 'aspirational' is still the way the convention is described. 'The policy is there, everybody knows that policy is the way to go,' Stott asserted. 'The problem is delivery - not in its entirety because many events do deliver that. The problem is you get is these sporadic events where that policy isn't adhere to, and there doesn't appear to be any kind of regulatory mechanism to say if you don't deliver, then what's the consequence? If there's no consequence, then these deviations are just going to continue to happen.' For Stott, a huge step towards making the Saint-Denis Convention the norm regards the involvement and control of Uefa. While he notes that the governing body's adoption of the agreement has been the 'driving force' in 'shifting the agenda', the situation could be vastly improved if Uefa took a more hands-on approach to regulating match policing in its competitions. 'Uefa doesn't really control policing,' he said. 'Policing is controlled by the nation states, and those police forces and nation states will at times completely vary away from that agreement. And this is where we have argued, certainly in our report around the handling of the Champions League final in Paris, that Uefa should take more responsibility and more control over the policing of their events. It's their failure to do that which is one of the primary issues that needs to be confronted. 'It's really their failure to oversee the delivery of the safety and security operations in these locations that lies at the heart of the problem. If they took a more proactive role in overseeing that these events were going to be policed in line with these agreements, then we would have safer events. That's what went wrong in Paris, and it continues to go wrong. 'When Manchester United fans ended up getting tear gassed again, Uefa could have stepped into the fray and said 'if this continues to happen in France, your teams aren't going into the Champions League anymore'. It could take this much more assertive position, but it doesn't. We really need a much stronger and more robust regulatory framework to ensure more systematic and coherent delivery of the existing policy.' Football is obviously in a better place than it was 40 years ago. Heysel was one of a handful of tragedies that shook the game and forced change to be made. And while legislation proves that, we are still seeing shortfalls in practice when it comes to the policing of events, especially on the international stage. There is still vast work to be done to ensure the safety of travelling supporters, preventing disorder from once again unravelling into disaster.
Associated Press
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Heysel remembered: A look at the 1985 stadium disaster and how soccer recovered
On May 29, 1985, 39 people went to the biggest club game in soccer and never returned home. Heysel Stadium in Brussels was staging the European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool exactly 40 years ago. Crowd disorder culminated in a surge by Liverpool fans into an adjacent stand containing mostly Juventus supporters. In the ensuing chaos, some were trampled or suffocated to death as they tried to flee and others died when a retaining wall collapsed. A total of 39 people — 32 from Italy, four from Belgium, two from France and one from Northern Ireland — died and around 600 were injured in events that took place in real time on international television. On the 40th anniversary of the Heysel disaster, here's a look at what exactly happened and the consequences of one of soccer's darkest days. The background English soccer was in a bad place in the mid-1980s, with racism and hooliganism damaging the reputation of fans in the game's birthplace. Just two weeks before Heysel, a 15-year-old boy died during fighting at a game between Birmingham and Leeds, and a fire that ripped through a wooden stand at Bradford killed 56 people. Two months earlier, some of the worst ever rioting occurred at an FA Cup game between Luton and Millwall. 'A slum sport played in slum stadiums and increasingly watched by slum people' was how an editorial by The Sunday Times summed up the state of English soccer ahead of Heysel. Liverpool fans might therefore have been viewed with suspicion as they poured into Brussels for the match against Juventus, but they were also suspicious themselves. A year earlier, at the 1984 European Cup final in Rome, Liverpool supporters were attacked by their Roma counterparts after the game. 'It wasn't a case of revenge,' Tony Evans, a Liverpool fan who was at Heysel at age 24, told The Associated Press, 'but rather no ultra will ever do this to me again.' Adding to the potential for catastrophe at the 1985 final was the condition of Heysel, a 55,000-capacity structure with outdated standing-room only stands, flimsy chicken-wire fences and crumbling walls inside and outside the stadium. There were too few police officers present, and organizers arranged for there to be a section for 'neutral' fans beside one of the two stands holding Liverpool supporters at one end of the ground. Many Juve fans ended up getting tickets in the 'neutral' section — and that's where the tragedy occurred. 'People were out of control' Evans attended the match with family and friends and remembers the level of drunkenness among Liverpool fans was unlike anything he'd seen. 'People were out of control everywhere,' he told the AP. 'When you got to the ground, people were kicking holes in the wall to climb in. By then, the atmosphere had deteriorated and there were wild rumors going round that Liverpool fans had been stabbed and one had been hung.' Evans, who has written about Heysel in two books, 'Far Foreign Land' and 'Two Tribes,' recalls the Liverpool section being so overcrowded that fans were already spilling through a collapsed barrier into the 'neutral' section. Fans were seen throwing beer cans and chunks of concrete torn from the stands. What ultimately set off a fatal surge by Liverpool fans, Evans said, was flares being set off. 'That seemed to spark a huge panic, a charge down the front,' he said. Those fleeing the panic were crushed in the corner of the neutral section next to an old wall, which collapsed. Despite the chaos, organizers decided the final should be played, believing it would prevent further disorder between fans outside the stadium. Juventus won 1-0. The aftermath Some 26 Liverpool fans were arrested and charged with manslaughter, 14 of whom were found guilty and given three-year prison sentences. Suspended prison sentences were handed to a Belgian Football Association official and a police chief. Heysel never hosted another major game. It was torn down in 1994 and replaced with King Baudouin Stadium. In terms of sporting sanctions, English clubs were banned from playing in European competition for five years. Liverpool received an indefinite suspension that ultimately lasted for six years. Long-term consequences Heysel was 'the low point for the English game' that was hated by the British government 'for its internationally shaming events,' according to John Williams, an expert in the sociology of football at the University of Leicester. Fans voted with their feet, with crowds in the English league in the 1985-86 season plummeting to around 16 million — a post-war low — when they had once been two and a half times that, Williams said. Yet Williams said Heysel started the process of reflection among English soccer fans that something needed to change. Within a decade — and turbo-charged by another stadium tragedy when Liverpool fans were crushed at an FA Cup match at Hillsborough, leading to the death of 97 people — the English game would have all-seater stadiums, CCTV, stronger powers for the police, an alcohol ban inside grounds, a national organization of fans, the Premier League and be the envy of the rest of Europe. 'Ironically, in many ways it was England that benefitted most from Heysel in the long run, more than for the Italians and others in Europe,' Williams said. He referred to what authorities abroad call the 'English miracle — the managing of fans competently with stewards rather than police and the generally very low levels of disorder in new elite modern stadia.' For Evans, fans took a deep breath and stepped away from 'the abyss.' 'It was a natural development by the people who watched the game and realized if this sort of behavior that had characterized the first half of the 1980s continued, football would be dead within a decade,' Evans said. 'Everyone says Hillsborough was the determining factor, but the reality is the tides of history had changed four years before.' A day of remembrance Liverpool and Juventus were unveiling memorials on Thursday in honor of the Heysel victims to mark the 40th anniversary. For Liverpool, the occasion would be even more poignant coming just days after a minivan plowed into dozens of fans during the team's latest Premier League victory parade. Liverpool said its newly designed memorial at Anfield will feature 'two scarves knotted together and gently tied — symbolizing the unity and solidarity between the two clubs and the bond formed through shared grief and mutual respect in the aftermath of the disaster.' It will include the names of the 39 people who died. Juventus ' memorial will be near its stadium and training complex. ___ AP soccer:
CNA
28-05-2025
- General
- CNA
Tackling youth brawls in Indonesia
Youth brawls and hooliganism are hardly unique to Indonesia and are complex problems that have persisted for generations. A recent brawl involving primary students in Depok, West Java and another incident in Manggarai, Jakarta have sparked renewed concerns about the problem. CNA takes a look at the root causes of such brawls in Indonesia and what can be done to prevent them.
