Tribune. Since the summer, French professional football has been confronted with numerous incidents, caused by supporters with varied profiles, both ultras, involved in several fights and field invasions, and other supporters who have thrown projectiles at the players. These tensions can be explained by a particular context, after months of games behind closed doors.
The return of the public to the stadiums aroused great excitement, generating fervor and violence, and not only in France. Organizational failures are also involved. Having lost the habit of welcoming the public, and suffering economically because of the closed doors and the bankruptcy of Mediapro – the former championship broadcaster – some clubs have probably not adapted their security devices well, and all are faced with the difficult recruitment of stewards competent. As for the police, they have sometimes surprisingly failed in the supervision of supporters. To avoid a lasting deterioration of the situation, it is therefore necessary to act on the various types of overflows and to improve the organization of the matches.
Many players and observers of football advocate applying the English model, presented as having, by its severity, curbed hooliganism in the 1990s. If England has indeed closely monitored violent supporters and firmly repressed their abuses by permanently banning stadiums, it has developed a more global policy: renovation of the speakers, seats, transformation of the championship – which has become the most watched in the world -, increase in the price of tickets inducing changes in the composition of the public, better integration of fans in the world of football… At the same time, Germany also built a voluntarist policy to fight against hooliganism, in part different: while repressing violence, it kept standing steps and accessible prices, and developed social prevention and dialogue with supporters.
To apply the law
France has long reacted piecemeal before advocating “zero tolerance” from the 2009-2010 season, marked by the death of two French supporters. If it also uses individual stadium bans, it has developed methods almost ignored by our two big neighbors. On the one hand, to ban all visiting supporters during high-risk matches. On the other hand, closing stands or an entire stadium after incidents – sometimes violence, often pyrotechnics. If the clubs must be encouraged to take care of their security arrangements, the frequent use of these sanctions has perverse effects because they are relatively similar for facts of different gravity and they punish the entire public for abuses. ‘a minority. Rather, it is by targeting problematic supporters that England have managed to clean up their stadiums. The desire recently displayed by the Minister of Sports to individualize the sanctions therefore seems relevant.
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