Gardai draws up hitlist of football thugs
Scott Millar
GARDAI are responding to a recent surge in British-style football hooliganism in Ireland by drawing up a dossier with soccer authorities on the most notorious troublemakers.
Several League of Ireland football clubs are helping to compile files on violent fans, using footage from closed- circuit television (CCTV) cameras. Thirty suspects have already been identified by three football clubs in Dublin.
The clubs have said they will ban anyone involved in football violence.
Gardai are also increasing their policing and surveillance at games. Detectives have travelled to Britain in recent months to study security at football stadiums there. They have also consulted the UK’s National Criminal Intelligence Service, which has a unit dedicated to gathering intelligence on football violence. Video surveillance cameras will now be used outside the larger club matches in the capital.
One league club official estimated that up to 50 fans could be involved in orchestrating violence at one club alone. At least one of those identified in the clubs’ dossier is known for violence associated with Glasgow Celtic games in Scotland, where he has been convicted of football-related crime. It is hoped that the new information will enable preventive action to be taken against those involved.
Attendance at league games averages less than 2,000, but in recent weeks arrests and violent incidents have soared. The violence has mainly involved three Dublin clubs — Shamrock Rovers, Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic — along with Dundalk and Cork City. Shamrock Rovers, one of Ireland’s most successful clubs, were last week expelled from their temporary stadium at Richmond Park because of the violence.
One garda who polices Eircom League matches said the force and football associations are acting before the violence gets out of hand. “The image of Irish soccer is one of a game played in a good atmosphere— something we want to maintain,” he said. “Measures are being put in place on a national basis to deal with problems that have emerged with some people who attend games.”
The most serious incident was an attack on Bohemians supporters following a fixture with Shamrock Rovers on September 1. Rovers admitted last week that the club had “a serious problem with a small number of our supporters”.
Alan Duncan, secretary of the club, said: “Two weeks ago all of our energies were channelled into the building of our new stadium. Now we are looking for some place to play and at how we, in conjunction with the gardai, are going to get rid of these mindless people who have attached themselves to the club.
“The whole league has to look at this issue and ask itself, ‘Is this something which is creeping into football that was not here before?’ We must act to stamp it out and this may even necessitate legislative change.”
Increasing security costs have also strained club finances. The Bohemians board even considered banning away fans from their next game with Shamrock Rovers, the first time such a move has been considered in the republic.
The club has installed a CCTV system to monitor fans’ activity and has banned four of them for three years.
An Eircom League security committee last week heard that organised violent casual gangs are associated with two of the league’s clubs. These groups have even set up confrontations by mobile phone and the internet. The casual gangs, so-called because their members wear designer-label clothes and not the clubs’ colours, are an imitation of similar gangs associated with clubs in Britain.
Eric Dunning, a sociologist at University College Dublin, said: “Soccer violence is something which is mainly associated with working-class young men. Recent years have seen growing use of the internet to propagate it.”
One Bohemians fan, who admits that he has been involved in organised clashes, said: “Violence at games mainly involves casuals. People are identified by wearing expensive designer clothes and stay apart from other fans. The age of these guys is anything from mid-teens to mid-thirties. This season it’s obvious that it’s gone too far and innocent people have been injured.
“Most lads are now asking themselves if it’s possible to still have the buzz at the games but without any violence.”
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