Violence in football - Brazilian experience.

• Author: Ferrao, Mauricio

INTRODUCTION

The 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics in Brazil have triggered a push in the Brazilian sports market. Two mega sporting events happening two years apart it is a golden opportunity which justifies the enormous interest in the country. For this reason, we have been invited to talk about many aspects of sports law and business in Brazil. In one of these opportunities, during a travel to a South Korean city named Jeonju (near Seoul), where we held speeches at the seminar "Tasks and Prospects of Tort Law", the idea of making a presentation at the University of Milan (2) about the violence in Brazilian stadiums came out.

The violence in football stadiums seems to be a serious problem not only in Europe but also in South America including Brazil. Beyond doubt, the phenomenon of football hooliganism is one of society's most intractable issues at the time. In truth, hooligan is a sports fan, who belongs to a fan club. However, he is involved in criminal activities, including violence against people and property, organized disorder on the streets and premeditated disorder inside and around football stadiums.

In Brazil there is a specific law called Fans' Bill of Rights Act (Estatuto do Torcedor), which provides sports and criminal penalties against violent sports fan. Despite that, claims about the success of recent preventative measures taken by the Brazilian police authorities are premature.

There are very strong indications that criminal organizations are operating inside the fan clubs. They adapt and change their strategies relocating their violent activities according to the security-related developments made by the authorities.

Over recent years, much has been written about violence in football, mainly about hooliganism as well the motivations and psychology behind violent behavior out of the field. The authorities have been done a lot to avoid violence between fans inside the stadiums. However, not many effective measures were adopted so far.

In this context, this paper must be of interest to all those who are involved in dealing with or studying sports law and other similar forms of criminal behavior in sport, such as delinquency and vandalism, and also those responsible for stadium safety and management.

1. Gangsters or Fans?

   There is true that football hooliganism is an English phenomenon. This is not a fallacy. The hooliganism like we know in Europe is indeed a European reality. In Brazil we have a rough copy of that. There the phenomenon is quite different than elsewhere in the world. The 'Brazilian hooligan' is not a fan who becomes violent. He is a criminal who goes to a football stadium and do what he usually do i.e. criminal activities.

   The Brazilian hooligan is not a criminal who turned into a fan. He is just a criminal who needs a group. In this regard, we ask ourselves: where would be better to a delinquent to commit criminal acts and remain anonymous than in a football stadium, wearing a fan club's t-shirt, surrounded by thousands of people?

   Violence and hooliganism in football is less a sport problem than a social problem. The reason of this social problem is quite simple and can be explained by the fact that many criminal gangs follow football clubs. Those gangs are built by people who call themselves 'fans'. They are responsible for acts of extreme vandalism.

   If they kill, they kill in name of a flag. If they kill, they kill because of their assassin instinct. These people are not...