Football Hooliganism

Football hooliganism is organized or semi-organized violence and disorderly conduct by spectators connected to association football matches. It typically grows out of rivalry between opposing groups of supporters who set out to intimidate or fight each other, with clashes occurring before, during or after a match, sometimes staged away from the stadium itself to avoid police attention. Long standing rivalries between particular clubs tend to produce the most serious incidents, and the worst cases have caused deaths among rival supporters, police officers and bystanders, prompting the deployment of riot police at high risk fixtures. The phenomenon is documented across many football playing countries, with its own slang such as aggro and bovver in Britain.