Violence ‘kills’ Latin American football

The episode at the Querétaro stadium in Mexico was one of the most dramatic, but not the most recent nor the last of a scourge that relentlessly plagues football in Latin America: the violence of the fans, which is far from being controlled, according to with experts.

The fight that started on March 5 during the game between Querétaro and Atlas, the current Mexican champion, went around the world. The clash between fans left 26 injured, 22 arrested and a list of sanctions against clubs and fans.

That same night there were aggressions outside the Palmaseca stadium as part of the derby in the Colombian city of Cali between América and Deportivo Cali.

The following day, a man was shot dead in a clash between Atlético-MG and Cruzeiro fans before the derby in Minas Gerais.

Check out this and other videos at
More videos at
videos.gazetaesportiva.com

And in Uruguay, on the day the referees declared a strike, suspended on Wednesday, after two judges received death threats in twelve days and another was the target of an attempted aggression by a person close to the Danubio club.

Four scenes in different countries of the same problem that has not been adequately addressed by the authorities despite having been tarnishing the ball for decades, according to experts.

“There is no way to end violence in football, that must be very clear. There is a way to reduce it. You have to have a very complete structure, a very complete public policy, to reduce this”, says Heloisa Reis, author of the book, to AFP. Football and Violence” and professor at Unicamp.

“Toxic Masculinity”
Countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay have enacted laws or regulations since the 2000s to prevent excesses and punish even with prison sentences.

Some of them replicate measures that have been taken in Europe to control ‘hooligans’, such as biometric identification or video surveillance in stadiums.

After the violent disturbances in Querétaro, Mexico banned the entry of visiting fans, a measure used or still in force in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, and questioned by experts because, according to them, the violence moves to the streets.

Despite everything, the dead continue to be counted by the dozen: 157 in Brazil between 2009 and 2019, 136 in Argentina in the last 20 years and at least 170 in Colombia between 2001 and 2019, according to academic or NGO studies.

“The big failure of these policies is that they focus exclusively on security,” says sociologist Germán Gómez, a researcher at the Colombian Association of Sports Studies.

Experts agree that shock measures are often not applied and tend to ignore pedagogical work and the social context, such as unemployment, inequality, or problematic drug and alcohol use. Nor do they attack the complicity of some clubs with members of organized supporters.

Researcher on the subject for almost thirty years, Heloisa Reis says that the root of the problem is the so-called “toxic masculinity”, a competition between men to conquer power – within the fans or against rivals in the case of football – through physical force.

Therefore, she defends public policies aimed at the education of men, the main members of the organized supporters.

But she is not optimistic: “We live in a masculine domination for centuries, the masculine values ​​reproduced are of domination, of strength, of courage. How do you have any prospect of ending this? No.”

pandemic effect
Although there are no recent figures, experts perceive an increase in violence since the public returned to stadiums after the confinement due to the pandemic.

“These are the consequences of such a prolonged confinement, when people return to a public event they need to vent”, explains Gómez, not forgetting “the very strong component of violence” of the organized supporters.

In Brazil, for example, since February 12, at least nine violent incidents have been recorded, including the gunshot wound to a Palmeiras fan and attacks on buses by several teams, which left players injured.

“After the pandemic, we are really surprised by all this aggressiveness that has been following in some games”, says Luiz Claudio do Carmo do Espírito Santo, president of the National Association of Organized Supporters, which brings together almost 1.5 million people from almost 200 supporters. of Brazil.

A member for 28 years of an organized supporters of Vasco, the leader guarantees that these acts are the responsibility of a minority that is not sanctioned.

“They wear the team’s shirt and are already considered members of the organized crowd and they punish the whole crowd”, he points out. “Why weren’t they arrested or punished? In the next game they’ll be fighting the same.”