World Cup fouled by drink and violence

The lottery of a penalty shoot-out may have brought England's World Cup campaign to an end, but it was the violence of drunken fans which marred the opening. The newspapers blazoned photographs of football supporters swilling beer, hurling missiles at rivals, conducting running battles with the French police, and generally causing mayhem. Reports stated that they were usually drunk and the pictures tended to confirm this. Television footage rarely showed a fan without a can or bottle, possibly the product of a World Cup sponsor, in his hand and as often as not failing to meet the challenge of communication.

The continental press was quick to pick up the theme. Following the disturbances in Marseilles, the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, allowed itself some free-ranging comment: "Look at these people, with their stomachs hanging out, tattooed from top to bottom, peeing on people on the ground, too drunk to remember their names and addresses at the police station...it's their ignorance of life which is so terrifying." This was "the ignorant side" of Blair's Britain, the paper claimed, the real face of the country. La Repubblica drew attention to the fact that some sociologists had sought to excuse the hooligan behaviour by saying that these young men were the direct descendants of those who fought at Waterloo. Considering the Duke of Wellington's opinion of the soldiers under his command (he thought they were "the scum of the earth"), this might be an accurate comment in more senses than one. The Italian reporter becomes hyperbolic (if that is not risking a national stereotype), describing the fans "with two fingers raised, trousers down, bare-buttocked, with a burning desire to see blood run - these were all too typical of British behaviour". The hooligans who are so roundly condemned probably believe that all Italians belong to the Mafia.

But La Repubblica makes a telling point: "The popular tabloids may write about shame, yet the same rags pay some hothead's expenses so that he can publish his diary of how he screwed the police and devastated every bar in sight." Newspapers like The Sun have entertained their readers for years with xenophobic headlines encouraging the attitudes which led to scenes such as those witnessed in Marseilles. "The Sun today calls on its patriotic family of readers to tell the feelthy French to FROG OFF!"

The German press was interested in contrasting the Cool Britannia image which the Prime Minister is trying to project with the "crude counterpoint of collective violence, uninhibited vandalism, and racism", as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany's most distinguished newspaper, put it - with unintended irony in view of the subsequent behaviour of German fans. "They conformed to the common picture of English football fans: tattooed contemporaries with ambitions only to drink the remaining pathetic dregs of reason out of their skulls and to supply their own team with a backdrop of permanent intoxicated rioting." The reporter, continuing in sententious vein, states that the hooligan - a word of Irish origin, as it happens - "is a particularly English creation, drawn from the working class, whose natural habitat is the pub and whose intellectual horizon is confined to an overwrought, usually racist and far Right stew of half-baked ideas." This latter combination of qualities must have seemed uncomfortably familiar to older readers of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The question, of course, remains as to exactly how widespread the violence was and what was its cause. Given the number of English supporters who travelled to France, it is quite clear, as the Sports Minister, Tony Banks pointed out, that only a small minority were involved. The vast majority of English fans were well behaved and entered fully into the spirit of the occasion. This is confirmed by the reaction of bar owners and restauranteurs in Toulouse, Lens, and Saint Etienne as well as the authorities. It is, of course, understandable that attention focused on the troublemakers and shocking that such behaviour disgraced the national effort. But it must be kept in mind that a complex series of factors influenced events: the reputation of British fans, the reaction of the French police, the existence of tough North African gangs in Marseilles where England played Tunisia, the activities of groups interested in violence rather than football, the desire of the media to report sensational events (and the willingness of the inadequate to provide them when in the presence of a camera), and, of course, the ubiquitous influence of alcohol. This last stemmed from the relentless promotion of the sponsors' products, the refusal of the French authorities to restrict the opening of bars, the regular involvement of a number of players in highly publicised drunken sprees, and the association in the minds of many between any sporting event and the consumption of vast quantities of beer.

There are such clear and well-established connections between alcohol and violence that it may seem odd to some that those who have the responsibility for security at large-scale sporting events tolerate its promotion and widespread availability. The French Minister of the Interior said that he did not think that his country should have to change its way of life simply to guard against the excesses of unruly visitors. Even after the events at Marseilles, the decision was taken that there should be no change in the bar opening times in the run-up to the England-Argentina game, other than that they should close at 11 pm having been open since eight in the morning. However, there was a complicating factor in this question, in that, since most English fans did not have tickets to get into the game, the bars were the only places where they could watch it on television and so be kept from causing trouble on the streets. The bars being closed would, of course, not have prevented their acquiring alcohol.

The alcohol industry had staked a huge amount on the advertising potential of the World Cup. Sponsorship does not flow from any philanthropic view of life, but from hard-headed business reality. Anheuser-Busch put millions of dollars into the event in the knowledge that its investment would be repaid many times over in increased sales. Presumably the same motive led Carlsberg to sponsor the English team, perhaps mistakenly expecting a longer run than from its native Denmark. The big problem facing the industry in the World Cup was the Loi Evin, by which it was illegal for any advertisement for alcohol to be seen on French television: hence the sponsors could not use hoardings around the football grounds where they would have been caught on camera during matches. The brewers complained to Brussels that this was an infringement of the free market. The European Union, however, maintained that it was a public health matter not one concerning the freedom of the market. The industry was willing to go to considerable lengths to get round the Loi Evin simply because they knew what vast sums of money were involved in their advertisements being seen during matches. In this context, it was interesting to note the opening film used as an introduction on BBC television. This swept the viewer through the doors of a splendid Parisian restaurant and, as the camera panned around the interior, footballers appeared: Gascoigne sobbing, Bobby Moore holding the Jules Rimet trophy aloft, then others, projected in bottles or onto the surface of glasses of wine. A neat association, unconscious perhaps, between alcohol and the World Cup was made in a way which would have been illegal as an advertisement on French television.

According to other reports in the press during the World Cup, violence was not always associated with alcohol, and alcohol was not always associated with violence. Most Scottish fans may not have drawn a sober breath during their stay in France, but their behaviour throughout was benign. This may have had something to do with the difficulty of being taken seriously as a belligerent when sporting a ginger wig and Tam O'Shanter. On the other hand, the neo-Nazi gangs from Germany, which caused their government such shame and left a French policeman struggling for life, were marked by their sobriety. Alcohol may often cause violence, but it makes it less efficient. It also invites violence: it is by no means unusual for a drunk to be beaten up by sober assailants and this seems to have happened during the World Cup disturbances.

Whatever the causes of the violence which damaged England's reputation during the World Cup - and they were certainly complex - alcohol played a major part. Since the unpleasant elements which actually commit the violence are unlikely, without prolonged therapy, to address the problem of their character defects, the governing bodies of football cannot avoid looking at the question and debating the issue of sports sponsorship and the availability of alcohol seriously. Major sporting events have become closely associated with alcohol to the detriment of their good name and the enjoyment of a majority of fans. More importantly, a dangerous message is being sent out to young people.