Zawaya

Fighting Riots in Stadiums

By: Mohammed Guertili

Sports riots are an emerging social and psychological phenomena in many contemporary societies. This has become a major threat, given the aggressive behaviors that are carried out within the scope of a well-knitted strategy with goals unrelated to sports. However, the case is quite different for our country, where riots in stadiums are rather improvised and occur merely as a reaction to some of the acts carried out by different entities.

I- Reasons and motives:
• Overcrowding.
• Influence of alcohol and drugs.
• Weak or biased arbitration.
• Strongly fanatic masses.
• Shallow performances in critical games.
• Social and political tensions.
• Stadium capacities.
• Unavailability of suitable conditions for entry and exit.
• Conflicts between different neighborhoods and parties.
• Frequent intentional or unintentional referee errors.
• Lack or nonexistence of suitable conditions for good games.
• Attacks from a player against an opponent.
• Lack of basic facilities in stadiums (toilets, drinking water, etc.)
• Fragile structure of Moroccan clubs.
• Lack of trust between the different stakeholders in the game on the one hand, and between them and the supervising institutions on the other hand.
• Irresponsible behaviors of some technicians.
• Irresponsibility of some sports reporters.
• Lack of respect for the laws in force.
• Absence of democracy since the election of the sports supervising institutions.
• Absence of a national sports policy.
• Provoking the public because of the miscalculations of a security officer during the processing of some cases.
• Lack of transportation means so as to meet the needs of the audience.

II- How to fight riots:
1 – Increasing awareness:
Indirect awareness through the audio-visual and written media, with the contribution of the Ministry of Communication and through the publication of articles and the organization of round tables.

Direct awareness through the national group of elite football, following these measures:
- Distributing t-shirts with slogans against riots.
- Distributing leaflets while selling tickets.
-Distributing the annual tournament program with the legal terms on the back, which prohibit acts of violence and riots.
- Developing an internal law for stadiums.
- Publishing an illustrated list of prohibitions on the stadiums’ gates.
- Organizing motivational competitions for each game.
- Allocating a prize to the best audience.
- Offering a reward to the most active fans and supporters association, and which should be legally recognized.
- Designating a national day for sportsmanship.
- Organizing a ceremony at the end of each season to be broadcast on television channels, in order to honor the best manager, the best coach, the best player, and the best audience.

2 – Stadium security cells:
Create a security cell for each stadium that hosts national championship games of the elite group as a first step of the process of generalizing security cells to the rest of the stadiums.

A stadium security cell consists of:
- A representative of local authorities.
- A representative of the public prosecution.
- A representative of national security.
- A representative of the royal gendarmerie.