Violence in sport and hooliganism
Authors: Golijan Iva 
Published: April 2021

The aim of this paper is to point out the structure and some mechanisms for generating violence in sports. Based on the sociological analysis, the paper argues that violence in sports is a consequence of the concept of the sport itself as violence. This violence, in its contemporary form, appears as a neoliberal imperative of competition and victory, that is, emphasizing the need for individuals in the process of mutual competition to actualize their entrepreneurial potentials. Also, this article seeks to see the current laws on the prevention of violence and misbehavior at social events in a wider sociological and political key. In this sense, the education system, culture and sport are thus becoming forms of expression of this new rationality of capitalism. It is a game of politics that makes sport an area of ideology, in the sense of a kind of hidden apology of the system of social production, which, as a petition principle, becomes apparent, becoming a general value framework upon which to evaluate the success of each initiative. This paradigmatic social framework, this free market hypostasis, results in the reduction of man to a competitor. The value in the services market, the ability to adapt to the system of capitalist production, is taken as basic human value in an imaginative way. Sport in this ideological drive apologizes for this axiological intervention. The ideological role of sport, therefore, is particularly pronounced in transition countries. The glorification of competition, the celebration of the victors, is thus only a first-rate semiological system that, in the apology of liberalism, turns in defense of the very social principle that enables the triumph of the best. Violence at sports events is, therefore, first generated by the very ideology of rivalry and competition. Just like athletes on the field, fans, in cheerleading groups, also occupy certain positions within the group through their actions. However, the problem of violence in sports competitions, in a sense, abandons the "fair play" paradigm. Open confrontations, fights, clutter not only cause harm, but also condition the danger that the sporting events themselves become less commercial. Likewise, insisting on the institutions of a democratic society, whose task it is to ensure the liberal organization of the market, presupposes, in fact, the concept of "soft power", a floating violence, whose true subjectivity remains invisible, masked precisely by the conception of political-economic models, which are prescribed as the only way to survive in modern society. The problem of violence, however, will not be overcome by the use of palliative measures, since its genesis lies in the very structure of social inequality. In this sense, the hope remains that the revitalization of sport will have some positive effect on the relaxation of social antagonisms, which cause various forms of social deviance. In other words, systemic solutions imply more radical social changes than immediate legal solutions can provide. When it comes to sports or, more specifically, sports violence, it means that prevention presupposes a change in those social relations that essentially enable the violent behavior of fans.