I will be doing a multipart series on Chinese hooliganism in football over the next week or so, these comments are coming from what I've read in the press and experienced myself at a number of different venues around China.  I'm firmly of the belief that unless something is done by the CFA and city governments, there could be a major incident at a match in China.

Part 2 : When Things Go Pear Shaped Inside and Outside Stadiums

In Part 1 I talked about the angry young men that tend to be the majority of supporters that attend football matches in China, in this part we'll focus on incidents that have occurred in the past.

Away supporters is a new concept in China, while this season the police has been good at dealing with them, in the past there was little if any attention paid to the situation.  Over the past 25 years of Jia A/CSL football, there have been incidents of fan violence at almost every venue around the country and the police is usually caught surprised by these situations and don't know how to deal with them.

The typical incident in China occurs after the game as the crowd awaits the visiting side's (or supporters) bus and throws things at it.  Incidents rarely go beyond that and damage is minimal except, perhaps, for the bus company.  Incidents inside the stadium are rare, mainly due to the massive size of the venues most teams play their matches in and the comparably small number of fans who attend matches.  With those numbers, even the most inept police knows when the home supporters are planning an "attack" on the visitors and the police and other security is usually more than enough to handle these matters.

The problem arises when the police isn't planning on away supporters attending.  While its easy to guess that a team like Shandong or Tianjin will bring a decent sized fan base to Gongti, the police wouldn't be so prepared if, say, Guangzhou does the same thing.*  It was that unpreparedness that led to the incidents widely reported after the Qingdao-Henan match a month ago.  When fans have the opportunity, they think nothing of beating the shit out of an opposing team's fans or taking "souveniers" of their "congquests" by stealing fans' scarves or jerseys.  

Since many Chinese stadiums are located in the center of cities, there is also the problem of traffic outside the venue, m  阅读全文>>