Egpyt's Football Violence.

Yesterday (1/2/12) Egypt's equivalent of Manchester United al-Ahly travelled to Port Said to play a grudge match against al-Masry. In the 90th minute Cisse scored for al-Masry putting them 3-1 ahead and guaranteeing their first victory over al-Ahly in almost 50 years. Al-Masry fans decided to celebrate this by invading the pitch in order to attack the al-Ahly players and fans leading to a riot that quickly spread throughout the stadium and the surrounding area. In response the referee at al-Masry's home stadium in Cairo which they share with Zamalek decided to cancel the Zamalek V Ismaily match before it started. This prompted Zamalek fans to riot and set fire to their own stadium. By the time the two riots had finished 74 fans and police officers lay dead and more then 1000 were injured many with stab wounds.

From what I've seen from the two riots there seems to have been nothing more sinister at work then plain old football hooliganism. However with Egypt still going through it's post-Mubarak transition everything there has a wider political context. Egyptians have always been very passionate about their football and recently have imported the culture of Ultras from continental Europe. Saying that Ultras are extreme football fans is an understatement. Obviously they vary from country to country and club to club but at their strongest Ultras are highly organised criminal gangs that rival the mafia, have huge influence in how the teams they support are run and live to fight with the police and each other. As they spend all their time fighting with the police Ultras are always anti-government to some extent so when the Egyptian revolution started they were at the forefront of the street fighting with some boasting that they taught Tahrir Square how to throw bricks. In a simliar way to how the Muslim Brotherhood have benefited at the recent elections now that Mubarak has fallen the Ultras have benefited from increased popularity due to their role in the revolution and also from the security vacuum created by the collapse of Egypt's police and now appear to have become to strong.

In response to yesterday's events there are protests today (2/2/12) in Cairo blaming the police for allowing the violence to take place. I am not sure though what the protesters expect the police to do different because in my experience if that many football hooligans are that intent on violence there's very little the police can do to stop them. In Britain when we had a similar problem in the 1970's we responded by more heavily policing football matches and putting up fences to keep fans off the pitch and all this did was lead to the Hillsborough disaster. The only thing the police can really do is start banning away fans travelling to certain matches and playing other matches behind closed doors without any fans. Ultimately though it is the culture of the fans that has to change so the only good thing you can say about yesterday is that it might cause many Ultras to ask themselves whether it's all worth it.