Abstract
The question raised here is whether rival football fan groups can get united, and what kind of repertoire of action they implement in order to fight against corruption and bad governance in football.
Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split fans were specifically followed, be it in their joint actions against the Croatian football federation, or separately in their fights in their respective clubs for a better governance.
First results tend to show that, provided specific timing conditions, unity as a strategy between rivals, although unnatural, is not a problem since the enemy, as well as the final goal, are shared. Besides, it is argued that the issue of fans involvement in football governance should be dealt with on local, national and European scales.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Football: le Hajduk Split arrête de jouer pour dénoncer la corruption’, Le Courrier des Balkans, 26 November 2014 http://balkans.courriers.info/article26081.html
- 2.
‘The democratic hooligan? Radical democracy and social protest amongst football fans in Croatia’, Balkanist, 14 December 2014 http://balkanist.net/democratic-hooligan-radical-democracy-social-protest-amongst-football-fans-croatia/
- 3.
To that extent, Turkey would be another very good case to study.
- 4.
- 5.
See ‘Hooliganism as a standard measure of the rule of law in Serbia’. Regard sur l’Est, February 2014 http://www.regard-est.com/home/breve_contenu.php?id=1480&PHPSESSID=af586d26b055457cf4215ff94b0ef17c.
- 6.
‘La dynamite du Dinamo, Cahiers du football http://www.cahiersdufootball.net/article-la-dynamite-de-zagreb-4622
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
http://www.dnevno.hr/sport/nogomet/79873-upravni-sud-ponistio-izbor-vlatka-markovica-stimac-je-trebao-biti-predsjednik-hns-a.html However, although the appeal went through positively for him, Stimac was most embarrassed about it since the HNS in the meantime asked him to be the Croatia national coach after Euro 2012, in an attempt to sort things out behind the doors.
- 10.
To the authors, this category also applies to actual EU member states such as Bulgaria and Romania.
- 11.
- 12.
Bieber, Florian, Stagnation or the consolidation of the not-quite democracy in the Balkans, November 2011 https://fbieber.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/stagnation/
- 13.
Interestingly enough though, Croatia’s index in the Nations in transit ranking decreased in 2014 to be a bit lower than that of Serbia (see https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/nations-transit-2014). Both are described assemi-consolidated democracies’, while Slovenia is considered to be aconsolidated democracy’.
- 14.
The new president of HDZ, Tomislav Karamarko, took the lead to focus onnationalist topics’ such as the use of Cyrillic alphabet in parts of the country inhabited by Serbs, not to mention the rehabilitation of former president Tudjman, despite his authoritarian rule during the 1990s. HDZ’s victory at the last general elections at the end of 2015 led to the formation of a new government in which several ministers are very contested for their ideological proximity to nationalism and revisionism.
- 15.
Especially for Champions League games so that all Europe can see and wonder why the stadium is almost empty on a Dinamo Zagreb-Real Madrid or Dinamo Zagreb-ParisSaint-Germain game. See my piece for the website sofoot.com http://www.sofoot.com/mais-pourquoi-le-stade-de-zagreb-sera-t-il-si-vide-pour-accueillir-le-psg-163063.html
- 16.
‘Football: Au Dinamo Zagreb, les supporters veulent prendre le pouvoir’, Courrier des Balkans, October 2012, http://balkans.courriers.info/article20750.html.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
Milan Bandic was arrested in October 2014 under corruption accusations not linked to Dinamo. His arrest did not change anything regarding the way Dinamo is ruled, nor triggered early municipal elections.
- 20.
He eventually lost the case (see http://www.vecernji.hr/nogomet/visi-sud-ugovori-izmedu-zdravka-mamica-i-eduarda-da-silve-nisu-lihvarski-1043733).
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
The sloganHNS, faggot, you’ve destroyed football’ (HNS pederi, nogomet ste sjebali) is very common on every game.
- 26.
During my ethnographic fieldwork, I happened to be in Torcida’s end just behind a pornographic and somehow homophobic banner representing Igor Stimac and Zdravko Mamic. The club was sanctioned after that.
- 27.
La violence engendre la violence: qui sont les vrais hooligans en Croatie?’.Courrier des Balkans, Octobre 2013 http://balkans.courriers.info/article23363.html.
- 28.
- 29.
- 30.
This offer says much on the power of a man able to dismiss a decision taken by the football federation, and deemed crucial by both the government and the UEFA. That the HNS didnot react negatively to this offer also reflects some aspects on Croatian football’s governance.
- 31.
Videos are available on http://www.curva1899.com/2013/12/dinamo-zagreb-hajduk-split-torcida.html
- 32.
Live-report of the day http://www.index.hr/sport/clanak/torcida-i-bbb-rame-uz-rame-na-tribinama-pogledajte-navijacki-mars-na-maksimir/714158.aspx BBB and Torcida have written a new chapter of our football history’ reads this report http://sportski.net.hr/nogomet/hnl/scena-za-povijest-bbb-i-torcida-zajedno-protiv-mamica.
- 33.
- 34.
http://www.hrsport.net/vijesti/471043/nogomet-maxtv-prva-liga/hns-priznao-poraz-ukidaju-se-vauceri-za-gostujuce-navijace/HNS acknowledges its failure: The voucher system for away fans is abrogated’ reads the title.
- 35.
By global I mean a large coalition of fan groups united behind the same demands, and coordinating a common mobilisation above their own local issues and rivalries.
- 36.
Instead, a decision taken against a specific club or a specific group will hardly entail a global and immediate high intensity mobilisation. The case of Bad BlueBoys and their struggle with Dinamo governance and the HNS is rather clear on that matter: They are on their own.
- 37.
To that extent, Germany is a good example.
- 38.
- 39.
This situation is the most widespread if we consider the 54 UEFA football federations.
- 40.
This tends to change in the last years thanks to the dialogue initiated by UEFA and European authorities with fans organisations such asFootball Supporters of Europe (FSE) and Supporters Direct although their legitimacy to talk in the name of most fans in Europe is questionable.
- 41.
Supporters Direct had an observer status in the expert groupgood governance in sport’ established as part of the Council’s plan for sport 2011–2014 in order to encourage dialogue between sport actors, the EU and member states. http://ec.europa.eu/sport/library/policy_documents/xg-gg-201307-dlvrbl2-sept2013.pdf
- 42.
Unless they are willing to pay a huge amount of money for a tiny percentage of shares that barely give any right as it is the case in Arsenal.
- 43.
- 44.
Football Supporters of Europe had obtained from UEFA that a Supporter Liaison Officer be inaugurated in each club as part of the Financial Fair Play from 2012–2013 season. However, according to UEFA officer William Gaillard, France and Azerbaïdjan, still have not implemented this obligation, which does not impede French clubs from playing in European competitions. In addition, there is no guarantee that this SLO is not, accounting for clubs’ actual governance, an empty shell.
References
Bieber, F. and Ristic, I. (2012). Constrained democracy: The consolidation of democracy in Yugoslav successor states. Southeastern Europe 36(3), 373–397.
Blumer, H. (1971). Social Problems. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Brentin, D. (2013). A lofty battle for the nation’: The social roles of sport in Tudjman’s Croatia. Sport in Society 16(8), 993–1008.
Busset, T., Besson, R. and Jaccoud, C. Eds. (2014). L’autre visage du supportérisme. Autorégulations, mobilisations collectives et mouvements sociaux [The other face of fandom. Autoregulations, collective mobilisations and social movements]. Berne: Peter Lang/CIES.
Colovic, I. (1999). Campo di calcio, campo di battaglia [Football pitch, battlefield]. Messina: Mesogea.
Djordjevic, I. (2012). Twenty years later: The war did (not) begin at Maksimir. Journal of Ethnographic Institute SASA, Belgrade, (2), 201–216.
Garcia, B. and Welford, J. (2015). Supporters and football governance, from customers to stakeholders: A literature review and agenda for research. Sport Management Review 18(4), 517–528.
Gaxie, D. (2005). Rétributions du militantisme et paradoxes de l’action collective [Militancy reward and paradoxes of collective action]. Revue Suisse De Science Politique 11, 157–188.
Hourcade, N. (2008). Supporters extremes, violences et expressions politiques en’ Fance [Extreme fans, violence and political expressions in France]. In B. Thomas et al. eds. Le football à l’épreuve de la violence et de l’extrémisme [Football confronted to violence and extremism]. Lausanne: Antipodes, pp. 87–106.
Lalic, D. (2012). Torcida. Pogled iznutra [Torcida, a look from within]. Zagreb: Profil.
Masson, D. (2002). L’utilisation de la guerre dans la construction des systèmes politiques en Serbie et Croatie 1989–1995 [The use of war in construction of political systemps in Serbia and Croatia 1989–1995]. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Pierson, P. (2000). Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics. American Political Science Review 94(2), 251–267.
Sack, A. L. and Suster, Z. (2000). Soccer and Croatian nationalism: A prelude to war. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 24(3), 305–320.
Stewart, C. (2009). Arkan, la tigre dei Balcani [Arkan, the tiger of Balkans]. Padova: Alet.
Tilly, C. (1986). La France conteste de 1600 à nos jours [France protests from 1600 to nowadays]. Paris: Fayard.
Tregoures, L. (2014). Don’t touch my club! Social and identity mobilizations of Hajduk Split fans in Croatia (International conference: Soccer as the Beautiful Game). New York: Hofstra University.
Tsoukala, A. (2010). Hooliganisme en Europe. Sécurité et libertés publiques [Hooliganism in Europe: Security and public liberties]. Boisbriand (Québec): Athena Editions.
Woolcock, M., and Pritchett, L. Eds. (2002). Solutions When the Solution is the Problem: Arraying the Disarray in Development, Washington DC: Center for Global Development, Paper 10.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tregoures, L. (2017). Beyond the Pattern: Corruption, Hooligans, and Football Governance in Croatia. In: García, B., Zheng, J. (eds) Football and Supporter Activism in Europe. Football Research in an Enlarged Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48734-2_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48734-2_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48733-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48734-2
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)