A low profile 'softly-softly' approach to policing offers the best long-term solution to football hooliganism. So suggests research into the impact of public order policing strategies and tactics upon levels of 'hooliganism' at the UEFA European Championships in Portugal in June and July 2004. "Our clear message is that the methods chosen to police a football crowd determine whether or not disorder occurs," researcher Dr Clifford Stott points out.
Prior to the UEFA European Championships, the research team recruited and trained a team of 16 observers from the Portuguese Policy Academy and three Portuguese Universities. Researchers and the observation team were present at 14 matches and directly observed police deployments and key moments in fan behaviour, undertook 300 interviews with fans, police officers and officials and surveyed 138 fans both before and after the tournament.
"While some people believe football 'hooligans' come together with the premeditated desire to cause violence, the real situation is much more complex," Dr Stott asserts. While known hooligans were present throughout Portugal, virtually no incidents of disorder occurred at the matches observed by the research team but hooliganism did break out at matches taking place in Albufeira. Why was this?
The simple answer is that the police tactics differed, he states. No disorder occurred in areas of 'low profile' policing. Here, the proportion of visible officers was on average four officers per 100 fans, both in normal and increased risk situations. Extensive use was made of plainclothes police officers, who were able to differentiate accurately between legitimate and non-legitimate fans, set clear behavioural limits and make quick, appropriate and low-profile interventions when trouble appeared to brew. Officers patrolled in pairs in standard uniform with 'riot' police kept well out of sight. "English fans responded to this softly-softly approach in a very positive way," Dr Stott explains. "They viewed the policing as legitimate and felt they were treated not as 'hooligans' but as fans. This helped support a shared identification among fans (even of different nations) in terms of their football fandom - an identity that set them apart from those wishing to cause trouble. This 'identity' in turn appears to have empowered legitimate fans and helped them develop a vital 'self-policing' culture."
In contrast, widespread disorder occurred in those match cities where police intervened late in the day during 'disorderly' events and made extensive use of force (batons, etc) in relatively undifferentiated ways. Such tactics appeared to create an environment where 'hooligan' fans were empowered and more able to act in ways likely to provoke disorder.
"The clear message," Dr Stott explains, "is that by managing crowd situations proactively, the police can affect the dynamics of crowds in ways that empower and encourage self-policing whilst simultaneously disempowering and marginalising those who seek confrontation. Enlightened policing methods rather than the increased use of orders banning 'hooligans' from travel is the best way forward," he concludes.