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“To be or not to be?”: entertainment or violence? That is the question |
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June 21, 2000
ROTTERDAM (AP) - Battered Belgium was wondering which English soccer fans were going to show up at Euro 2000 on Tuesday. The noisy, entertaining ones or the racist, violent thugs.
Hundreds of English louts smashed up shops and bars in Brussels and fought with police and rival supporters in Charleroi before England's 1-0 Euro 2000 victory over Germany on Saturday. That prompted UEFA, soccer's European body, to threaten the team with expulsion from the championship if it happened again.
The threat is seen as a slight to the vast majority of peaceful, entertaining English fans who bought their tickets months ago. But the fact that hundreds of louts tag along as well has put a question mark over the entire army of England followers.
Skirmishes in Brussels Monday night showed England is far from being the only team with thuggish followers. Turkish fans celebrating their team's 2-0 win over Belgium, fought running battles with police in the streets of the Belgian capital and attacked cafes frequented by English fans on previous nights.
Belgian and Italian fans also joined the fray.
Police detained 43 people and charged 18 for violence and possession of knives, but despite the alarming scenes, Belgian authorities downplayed the scale of the trouble.
"Everything went relatively well. There were some incidents, but they were quickly dealt with," said Monique de Knop, spokeswoman at the Belgian Interior Ministry.
Despite the widening scope of the violence, it is English hooligans that continue to cause most concern.
UEFA president Lennart Johansson and chief executive Gerhard Aigner warned if the louts showed up and renewed their violence at England's game against Romania on Tuesday in Charleroi, there was a good chance that England would be out.
Such a move is unprecedented for the European Championship although UEFA banned English teams for five years in 1985 after rioting by Liverpool fans at Brussels' Heysel stadium killed 39 people at the Champions Cup final against Italy's Juventus.
If England win or draw against Romania, and don't get kicked out, they will play Italy in the quarterfinals, in that same Brussels arena, now renamed the King Baudouin Stadium.
In the light of the UEFA threat, the British government on Monday announced new measures to deter fan violence - including a lifetime ban from domestic games and stepping up detentions of known hooligans at customs. But the police argue they still have no real power to stop the hooligans crossing the English channel and going to the game.
"In our powers we can seek them out, we know who they are and we try to discourage them from traveling," Steve Chisnall, of Greater Manchester Police Football Intelligence Unit said the after some 850 fans were detained and 56 people injured in rioting in Brussels and Charleroi.
"We have no powers to stop them traveling. We give their details to foreign authorities and we inform individuals there is a possibility when they get to their destination, they will be turned around and sent back home.
"There's always more that can be done but, as far as we are concerned, we can only act within the law to prevent people from traveling," Chisnall said. "Whether something more can be done is up to someone else."
Perhaps the UEFA threat is the answer, at least in the short time.
England coach Kevin Keegan and the English Football Association argued strongly the vast majority of English fans are not only peaceful but a credit to their team and the competition.
"Before I left I said I wanted fans to come out here for the right reasons," Keegan said after the team's return to Charleroi on Monday.
"We wanted the same things as the fans - to win the tournament. I think we've got a chance. The FA are winners, the players have the capability. The fans have been winners in the stadium."
"The ones who are letting us down are losers.
"The ones who come over there for the wrong reasons, we don’ today want them in the stadiums," the England coach said. "It disappoints me. Respect other people's countries - that is the very minimum that should be required."
If the Romania game happened without any major trouble and England made it to the quarterfinal, then the game against Italy in Brussels could provide another flashpoint.
Brussels has a sizeable Turkish community and relations between English and Turkish fans have been strained since the fatal stabbing of two Leeds United fans in Istanbul at a UEFA Cup semifinal against Galatasaray in April.
There was follow up violence when Galatasaray met another English club, Arsenal, in the final in Copenhagen, where 64 fans were arrested in a downtown square.
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