By Charles Newbery
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
One of the country’s most popular football clubs was encouraged Wednesday to curb violence after a battle between fans damaged a stadium café, left two injured and raised concerns about spectator safety at matches.
The River Plate club’s authorities “are responsible” for stopping any violence at the stadium, Cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich said during a televised press conference a day after the fight between more than 100 hooligans at the club in Buenos Aires.
The hooligans, called barra bravas in Argentina, entered the club to get tickets for Thursday’s game against archrival Boca Juniors on the second leg of their Copa Sudamericana semifinal.
After the barra bravas were turned away at the ticket booth, they went with bats, chains and knives to the club café to find a member of a rival gang who has some degree of influence about who gets tickets, Buenos Aires newspaper La Nacion reported.
“Where are you, where are you? We’re going to kill you,” the hooded hooligans shouted while walking through the club, an unnamed witness told the paper.
A fight broke out but police didn’t arrive until after it had ended and they made no arrests, the newspaper reported.
Barra bravas are a big problem for football clubs in Argentina, where the sport is hugely popular and feeds players to international clubs, many considered among the world’s best, including Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez and Gonzalo Higuaín.
In Argentina, hooligans have entered pitches during training sessions to threaten players for poor performances and even engaging in physical altercations at times. Pitched battles are common outside stadiums, and shootings have resulted in some fatalities.
Some of the disputes are fueled by money as many barra-brava gangs are known for running businesses into everything from selling drugs to taking cuts on ticket sales and player transfers.
Critics say the hooligans carry out their businesses with the indirect support of club officials, politicians and the police.
But Capitanich pointed the finger at club officials, saying they should do more to stop the violence.
He said club officials control the gates to the stadiums and have security systems and inside information that should allow them to prevent violent fans from entering the grounds such as removing their memberships and denouncing their actions to the police.
If there is any illegal business ties between the barra bravas and club officials, it should be exposed, Capitanich added.
River Plate’s president, Rodolfo D’Onofrio, admitted that the club erred by allowing the violent fans onto the grounds Tuesday and by not scrapping their membership earlier, but he countered that his officials are not the only ones who are responsible.
“We cannot be police and judges,” he said on Radio Mitre. “We need the politicians to take responsibility,” he said, adding that the criminals in the barra bravas “must go to prison.”
Even so, he added that tackling the barra bravas is not easy.
“It is very dangerous” for all the club officials to face up to them, he said. “They will need to give me a lot of bodyguards.”
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