Tweet
Re: Euro 2012
One would hope not, of course.
UEFA has their head in the sand though. Platini is making excuses about how hard it is to police, how banning people would be impossible (even though stadiums in England and Spain throw overt racists out regularly) etc.
Crowd trouble in soccer matches in Poland is a regular occurence at the best of times as there are organised hooligan 'firms' associated with each club, and there have also been gang stabbings before and after matches in the recent past. As recently as 2007, Polish clubs were banned from all European competition due to ridiculous violence, and Liega Warsaw is actually still banned! (Their ban was for 5 years.) However, these hooligans tend to organise their fights away from stadiums these days because of tighter security, but as recently as last year a couple of fans from rival gangs were killed.
One would think that with a major tournament like this, however, security has been stepped up massively, so hopefully that would be enough. I hope racism or violence will just be a nasty subtext, and nothing horrible actually happens. The main problem will be racist chanting during matches -- it's happens as a matter of course at club matches in Poland, and it will be interesting to see if this continues at this tournament.
One would hope not, of course.
UEFA has their head in the sand though. Platini is making excuses about how hard it is to police, how banning people would be impossible (even though stadiums in England and Spain throw overt racists out regularly) etc.
Crowd trouble in soccer matches in Poland is a regular occurence at the best of times as there are organised hooligan 'firms' associated with each club, and there have also been gang stabbings before and after matches in the recent past. As recently as 2007, Polish clubs were banned from all European competition due to ridiculous violence, and Liega Warsaw is actually still banned! (Their ban was for 5 years.) However, these hooligans tend to organise their fights away from stadiums these days because of tighter security, but as recently as last year a couple of fans from rival gangs were killed.
One would think that with a major tournament like this, however, security has been stepped up massively, so hopefully that would be enough. I hope racism or violence will just be a nasty subtext, and nothing horrible actually happens. The main problem will be racist chanting during matches -- it's happens as a matter of course at club matches in Poland, and it will be interesting to see if this continues at this tournament.
. Not like they don't have a few good ones on the bench.
Comment