ABSTRACT
Introduction Building on the definition of SRV offered in Chapter 1, sports crowd violence is best understood as acts of verbal or physical aggression (threatened or actual), perpetrated by partisan fans at, or away from, the sports arena that may result in injury to persons or damage to property. Crowd violence might also include forms of identity violence (see Chapter 4), such as xenophobia and jingoism – expressed as racially motivated threats, harassment and attacks. Unlike acts of violence among players, crowd violence has, for many decades, elicited anxious responses from the authorities and remains closely policed. The recurrence of injurious, and sometimes deadly, crowd episodes in many countries has sensitized social controllers and sports administrators to the need for careful regulation and planning. Indeed, in many settings, crowd violence is seen as a serious problem and policing concern for communities as a whole, and strict measures, including new laws, have been introduced to address this issue (see Chapter 6). Fans of British and European soccer have gained notoriety for their violent rituals and practices but, in fact, violent soccer crowd disturbances occur worldwide – so much so that Dunning et al. (2002b) view hooliganism as a ‘world phenomenon.’ Since sports crowd disorder goes beyond the sport of soccer (many sports have been affected, some more consistently than others), and assumes varying forms across the globe, this may be an overstatement, but it is certainly important to think about crowd violence globally. This chapter critically reviews existing knowledge of, and perspectives on, crowd violence, particularly with respect to the UK and North America, and concludes by identifying common denominators and variations both in the phenomenon itself and in the research.
