Sevilla's serious hooligan problem
Barbaric episode in Seville
The European fixtures this week left us with an incredibly barbaric episode in Seville. It’s now known that 10 Juventus fans were dining on the eve of the game in a bar near the Triana Bridge and were detected by Sevilla ultras, who went over suitably armed and simply attacked them unprovoked. Destruction, injuries, and shame: for the city, for the team, for the whole of Spain and for football in general. It wasn’t a fight between thugs, it should be distinguished. This was an assault by hooligans on Juventus supporters, students of Erasmus and accidental tourists, who were eating out peacefully in a friendly city.
Most football fans are decent people
They weren't representatvies of all of FC Sevilla, but they were fans of the club and, first of all, the club’s problem. To repeat, they weren’t FC Sevilla, and that was evident in the fact that during the game, the Sevillismo – in their great majority – directed a large ovation to the stand in which the Juve fans were seated (an applause that that was sent back). And when at one point the brutes in the ‘ultra zone’ tried to start chants against the Italians, the rest of the stadium sang over their efforts, making them inaudible. The great majority of people who go to that ground, like most other football grounds, are decent people who only want to relax, distress and live in peace.
The club has a problem
But Sevilla has a problem: their ultras (and it’s happening at other clubs too) haven’t subscribed to the moral pact established by LaLiga since the ‘Jimmy Case' (the Deportivo fan who was killed in a fight outside the Calderón in 2014) which put in place a sort of ‘Spirit of Ermua’ type solidarity. Sevilla, exemplary in so many senses, have with these ultras a problem that they don’t how to resolve, something that other clubs – somehow or other – have managed to do. Perhaps in Sevilla the problem is graver and possibly needs the supports of everyone: the media, LaLiga, Police, and the rest. But the biggest effort has to come from the club itself, because the problem affects Sevilla more than anyone, and because without such effort there won’t be a solution.