当国家支持你搞种族歧视时
FIFA的处分又有什么用？
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/13/why-hungary-is-infected-by
-ultras-who-are-almost-impossible-to-control-wembley-violence
Wembley violence follows recent pattern of unpleasant fan behaviour and the
roots can be traced back more than a decade
There was an air of inevitability when fighting broke out in the away end
during Hungary’s 1-1 draw with England at Wembley on Tuesday night.
Hungary’s fans had been disciplined over their behaviour at four of the
previous six games played in front of fans, with homophobic banners seen
against Portugal and Germany, and monkey chanting heard against France and
England.
The abuse directed at Raheem Sterling and his teammate Jude Bellingham at
last month’s game in Budapest led to Fifa imposing a stadium closure on
Hungary after another enforced by Uefa because of the summer’s troubles.
In Hungary, there is an overriding sense of injustice, with both bans
vehemently condemned by football fans and government ministers.
At Ferencvaros’s game with Real Betis in the Europa League on 30 September,
the Green Monsters Ultra group revealed a banner reading: “Double standards
instead of equality! This is not FARE!”
Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, wrote on Facebook in July of
the Uefa ban: “The committee that makes a decision like that is a pitiful
and cowardly body. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
In Hungary, the Fidesz party’s governmental figures are loth to criticise
Hungarian football fans, owing to the close relationship between the
government and ultra groups. These relationships are more than a decade old,
going back as far as when the government was in opposition.
In 2009, in an effort to contain neo-Nazi violence on the terraces, Fidesz
met ultras groups from Hungary’s biggest clubs and formed the now-infamous
and unmistakeable black-shirted Carpathian Brigade.
Founded on the promise of bringing all fans together – the ultras groups,
the left, liberals, the right – for years the Carpathian Brigade built a
healthy relationship within Hungary. The group conducts a wide range of
charity work and is credited with bringing a much-improved atmosphere to
national team games.
“Only the big matches had a proper atmosphere but the ultras of the clubs
did not unite behind the national team or skipped the games altogether,”
Gergely Marosi, a sports journalism lecturer at Budapest Metropolitan
University, tells the Guardian.
“Because these ultras had their conflicts amongst themselves, sometimes they
did not stand close to each other, otherwise there was a chance for trouble.
That obviously did not help the atmosphere. Chants were disjointed and coming
from different sectors; there were a lot of lifeless games in terms of fan
performance.”
Yet the Carpathian Brigade soon became a victim of its own success. For many
years it was able to keep its members in check, but as the group grew, so did
the trouble. Games against fierce rivals Romania in 2013 and 2014 saw
coordinated violence, and at Euro 2016 the Carpathian Brigade made headlines
around Europe for the first time after clashing with stewards during the game
against Iceland in Marseille.
Initially being made up of 50-100 core ultras, the membership grew and the
neo-Nazi element that the Hungarian government tried so hard to contain was
again seen on the terraces. The group in time became a sort of safe space for
that white nationalist element to fester.
White nationalism on the terraces of Hungarian football stadiums dates back
to the 1950s, and grew through the 1970s and 1980s as Hungary’s youth,
disillusioned with communism, became more brazen with their protests.
When the Soviet system collapsed, fan violence at games became commonplace
and most of the regular match-attending fans not interested in violence
walked away. When communism fell in 1989, attendances in Hungary averaged
about 7,000. Today they are below 3,000.
The remaining match-going public largely share similar sentiments. White
power tattoos are common among the ultras groups at domestic games, as are
Nazi-inspired banners, and this has spilled into national team games more
recently, so much so that before Hungary’s European Championship game in
Munich in June, the Carpathian Brigade warned fans on its Facebook page that
they would need to cover tattoos to abide by local laws.
The Carpathian Brigade has become almost impossible to control. The
principles it was founded on are starting to shatter and it is impossible to
determine who belongs to the group.
On Tuesday night the core of the Carpathian Brigade were not in attendance,
yet the group’s rising infamy is breeding a culture that inspires those in
the ultras culture outside the group’s core to hide under its banner.
It was a mix of Hungarian and Polish fans who caused the trouble at Wembley
on Tuesday night. Poland and Hungary’s close connections date back centuries
and in football terms over the past decade the ultras groups have begun to
form ever more intertwined relationships.
Before 2009 Hungary’s ultras at national team games were fragmented.
Ferencvaros ultras would not associate with their rival ultras Ujpest, and
neither would Fehervar, Honved or Debrecen. Each ultras group would sit in a
different part of the stadium and they would never walk under the same banner.
Now under the Carpathian Brigade name, Hungary’s ultras (and to a small
extent Poland’s too) have formed alliances that in the fragmented years most
would have thought impossible. That name is starting to become one of the
most feared and infamous ultras groups in Europe. It is an extremely worrying
development and the question is, where it will all end?