page_title: Barra brava
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Barra brava / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Soccer fans, The 22 Español: Imagen de La 22 (Hinchada de Gimnasia) en el Estadio Ciudad de La Plata en el partido ante Boca Juniors en el Clausura 2008.
context_page_description: Barra brava is the name of organised supporters' groups of football teams in Argentina that provide fanatical support to their clubs in stadiums and provoke violence against rival fans and eventually the police.
  Actions like the exhibition of choreographies to welcome the team when it goes out to the pitch; waving and displaying of flags, banners and umbrellas; and coordination of chants during the whole match, are characteristic of their fervent behaviour aimed to encourage their team and intimidate referees and rival fans and players, for which they also provoke violence.
  They also look to attack rival fans, which leads to fights with them, and defend the rest of their team' spectators from rival attacks and police repression.
  These groups originated in Argentina in the 1950s and spread throughout countries. They are similar to hooligan firms, torcidas organizadas and ultras.
context_section_description: During the 1920s in Argentine football matches spontaneously began to appear irregular groups of fans that stood out for their fervour from the rest of the crowd in the stadiums. These groups were denominated as barras by the media, a term that in Rioplatense Spanish slang is equivalent to the term gang, but in its original meaning (not necessarily associated to crime), that is 'an informal group of people (usually friends) who meet frequently and usually do common activities'. Their actions were limited to stadiums during home matches because they couldn't follow (at least the whole members) their teams to other cities very often, neither was violence provocation their objective, as violence arose spontaneously due to frustration caused by bad results of their team or as a way to influence the match through intimidation of rival players and referees with insults, throwing objects and occasionally entering onto the pitch to assault them. Sometimes they also attacked rival fans (usually barras also) who used the same methods against their team. At the end of this decade, a few newspapers described one of this groups as a barra "brava" (Spanish for fierce), appearing the words barra brava together for the first time, but not yet like a term.
  One of those groups, named as La barra de la Goma ("The barra of the rubber") by press, appeared in 1927 and supported San Lorenzo de Almagro. The nickname comes from the rubber of bike inner tubes (filled with sand, and tied with wire at the ends) that this group used in some occasions to attack rival fans. Sometimes they would also throw objects at the players of rival teams to bother them when they should intervene in the game.
  The barras became a traditional part of the Argentinian football crowds and evolved until, in the mid-1950s, they began receiving funding from football clubs to attend all the away matches. While intimidation towards referees and rival players and supporters was previously spontaneous, from that moment on it would be their main objective (along with encouraging their team). Another objective came to be the defence the rest of spectators and players of their club from the attacks of rival fans (especially in away matches) and police repression, which increased fights and riots, that occurred more frequently before and after the matches outside of stadiums (although many also occurred on the terraces during the games, sometimes leading to their suspension). Thus they became the first organised supporters' groups of football fans in the world that were focused on violence (later appeared hooligan firms in United Kingdom, ultras in Italy and torcidas organizadas in Brazil).
  Argentine journalist Amílcar Romero stated that, before the appearance of such groups, when a team played away, it was intimidated by home fans. Barras bravas were a response to this pressure, so each club started to had its own barra brava, financed by the club leadership. These groups were given tickets and paid travel to the stadiums, and access to these benefits were controlled by the group's main members. To obtain prestige, the member had to be violent.
  In Argentine football it was institutionalised that, if you played away, you were pressured inexorably. Although it was not about barras bravas as we know them today. Home fans pressured you and, police, if not looking away, also pressured you. That had to be compensated with a theory that in the next decade (the 1950s) was rife: to every operating group with a mystical ability to produce violence, the only way to counter it is with another minority group, with as much or more mystique to produce violence.
  — Amílcar Romero.
  In 1958, media has begun to notice the existence of barras bravas after the riots during a match between Vélez Sarsfield and River Plate (at José Amalfitani Stadium), at which 18-year-old bystander Alberto Mario Linker was killed by police (he was accidentally hit in the head by a tear gas grenade thrown at point-blank range from a grenade launcher) when cops tried to disperse River Plate fans who were causing unrest i
caption: Barras bravas are recognizable for their flags. No other area of the stadium has more quantity or density of such. In the picture, La Banda de Fierro, organised supporter group of Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1280", "Image ImageLength": "960", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK EASYSHARE M753 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "480", "Image YResolution": "480", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2016:01:31 22:33:22", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "7/5", "Image FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "111", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image GainControl": "High gain up", "Image Contrast": "Normal", "Image Saturation": "Normal", "Image Sharpness": "Normal", "Image SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "Image ExifOffset": "468", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1102", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "11443", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1559/200000", "EXIF FNumber": "26/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:03:02 19:28:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:03:02 19:28:37", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "7", "EXIF ApertureValue": "19/4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "19/4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode, red-eye reduction mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "93/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1280", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "960", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "200", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "7/5", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "111", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}