Sociology 1005 Akash Rajoria
Professor Ted Henken
Date 8th July 2014
Hooliganism
Before talking about football hooliganism, we should first clear up our minds and not to put ourselves in a dilemma to what this phenomenon can be defined as. What is football hooliganism? Nowadays today in the world there are many definitions that are given in the literature, but actually none of them really focuses and consolidates of what the whole problem is, I believe the main reason for hooliganism is something that has expanded all over the world which makes it is a very complicated problem; between the countries, and as well as within countries and football clubs, there are many distinctions. For instance: some hooligan groups are very well organized, others not; one group is more violent than the other; some violence is directly related to sport, other not, etc. Hooliganism is categorized into not only violent behavior of the fans towards the opposition's fans but in addition also towards the players as well.
There are various types of hooliganism in soccer which can be characterized as follows taunting, e.g. by abusive chanting, sometimes obscene spitting, unarmed fighting, throwing of objects on to the pitch, either in an attempt to harm players and officials or as a gesture of insult (as when bananas are thrown towards players of black African origin, the implication being that they are monkeys), throwing of objects at opposing supporters, including stones, bricks, use of pyrotechnic devices such as flares and smoke bombs, fighting with weapons including sports bats, glass bottles, rocks, rebar, knives, machetes and firearms, disorderly crowd behavior such as pushing, which may cause stadium fixtures such as fences and walls to collapse. In extreme cases hooligans, police and bystanders are killed because of the riot caused. Critics argue that these...