Hooligans pose legal problem

Police hold down a drunken Belgium fan

Legislation already in place to prevent football hooligans attending matches in Britain should be used more effectively to stop them travelling abroad, according to academics.

Leicester University lecturer Ivan Waddington said blame could not be laid totally at the door of the government because the issue of hooliganism was complex.

He was speaking after Uefa claimed the UK Government could have done more to stop violence from English fans during Euro 2000.

Dr Waddington, director of the Centre for Research into Sport and Society, said penalties under the Football Spectators Act 1990 which could prevent fans attending matches abroad had only been implemented at local level.

It may not be a question of needing more powers but using them more effectively

Dr Ivan Waddington

He said: "What's tended to happen is that magistrates are primarily concerned with preventing troublemakers causing trouble in their own cities or towns and have only applied local bans.

"Thousands of these have been passed but you can count the number of international bans in tens.

"So in so far as they haven't been applied, that's not the responsibility of the government.

A German fan is arrested in Charleroi

"So it may not be a question of needing more powers but using them more effectively."

Dr Waddington's colleague, sociology professor Eric Dunning, added that measures in place in other countries had not prevented troublemakers arriving in Belgium.

"If you look at the German case, where they say they have prevented 3,000 from travelling, there are still German fans involved in trouble," he said.

"Some people are 'core hooligans', who go to fight, but that's not the totality of the problem. Just because you prevent them from travelling doesn't mean you've solved the problem.

"Whenever there's a major international tournament, you get groups of young men brought together, fuelled by nationalism and all wanting their country to win."

'More important than football'

Both academics added that police could help prevent trouble and international co-operation between forces had been fairly successful, with many hooligans turned back from borders

But they warned against believing the "myth" that hooliganism had disappeared after more rigorous stewarding, policing and security were introduced from the mid-1980s.

The problem had shifted away from grounds and at different times so the trouble could not be classified as football-related, he said.

England fans return home

Commenting on a possible England expulsion, Dr Waddington said: "It would be regrettable but one could understand them considering such a sanction.

"Some things in life are more important than football. This would not be a unique situation.

"English teams have been banned before from European competition because of the behaviour of their fans."