Abstract:
All around the stadiums linked to the world of football, this sport is strongly associated with violent spectators – a violence which is expressed in various forms, ranging from pitch invasions, damage of property and gang fights to wrecked playing grounds. Especially in combination with European and Latin American football, violent and civil warlike circum-stances have always been observed. A closer look at the history and background of militant fan grouping in England and Argentina exemplarily shows that the shared problem of violent spectators expresses itself very differently in the two countries: the rather ritualistic violence of Hooligans in England and the rather instrumental violence of the Barras Bravas organizations. From a civilization-theoretical point of view, these various forms of violence among football spectators associated with the European football in England and the Latin American football in Argentina can be seen social-specific and as result of historically, socially, economically and politically independent processes which – concerning human violence – have nationally different ways of expression.