ORGANIZED SUPPORTERS AND VIOLENCE IN FOOTBALL

ORGANIZED SUPPORTERS  AND VIOLENCE IN FOOTBALL

Nildo Viana

The organized supporters are often involved in acts of violence. Thus it becomes common to think that they are violent by nature, but there are exceptions. Some that are relatively peaceful, others are anti-violence in the country, such as Ultras Resistance Coral, Rail, Ceara. Nevertheless, such violence is generally encouraged and practiced within these twisted. The explanation of this phenomenon lies in the social base of the organized supporters and the mentality that breeds inside.

Organized twisted consist of people with precarious living situation, unemployed, etc., but not only. These are people who mostly did not gain the social competition and therefore have some frustration to be discharged in violent acts. Violence and aggression also play the role of substitute satisfaction by winning a competition, although not the great competition, which is social. The football team works as a way to compensate for the failure, since he is victorious. Similarly, the organized supporters demonstrating harder, and the individual inside, just winning this minor competition, but that brings a substitute satisfaction for the individual. Modern society is a competitive society. When she does not allow upward mobility for many individuals, especially young people and underprivileged classes, and produces a competitive mentality that permeates the entire society, also produces marginal forms of competition and among them the cheerleaders (organized supporters), which generate violence.

Thus, in a competitive society and unchanged possibilities, whether individual or collective, coupled with the situation of high level of poverty and unemployment, violence tend to be more constant and violence becomes a way to unload frustration. But individuals from the privileged classes also perform such acts of violence, whether through sports or otherwise, because depending on the values ​​of individuals and existing expectations in its class/family, he may commit acts of violence and join organized supporters, political groups of the extreme right (neo-Nazis), etc. Another source of violence are mental health problems, which affect individuals from all walks of life, such as excessive competition and the wear it causes as well as the aforementioned frustration. These and other reasons violence can merge and strengthen the case of the outbreak of violence in football.

Violence carried out by members of the organized supporters have social source whose origin is in social problems. Organized twisted create its own culture, typical of the people in the situation we set up, wanting to be higher and win a competition, whether through time or through one's own action while cheerleading. Each competitor in the absence of other resources, use what you have. The various social groups use different mechanisms of competition: the privileged sectors show their success through money, goods consumption, the display of wealth and power; intermediate sectors use art, culture, intelligence; the dispossessed have scarce resources: in addition to the victory of the other (football team, fans), there remains the physical strength. The youth culture that dominates the organized supporters is precisely the physical strength. This can be seen in aggressive symbols of organized supporters in their conversations and ways of acting. It is a wild culture, a demonstration of barbarism produced by modern society, which prevents the realization of thousands of human beings and also inculcates the competition in their heads, social and mental destruction.

Football is competitive and it is played off the field, including blending social and sporting competition, one offsetting the other, especially for the fans. The football, due to the competitive nature he assumed in our society and to all the social relations that exist, passes to relate intimately with violence, but we must realize that they are not synonymous. Football, as the organized supporters, is more social product and social relationships player than its producer. The violence of organized supporters can only be understood as a social phenomenon.

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Article originally published in the O Successo (Goiânia) on Friday, August 14, 2009 | Issue No. 595.