I've been wanting to write about futbol hooligans and ultras for a while, especially today just fresh of the World Cup in Brazil coming to end with Deutschland as Weltmeister. But man I do not know where or how to start. For one thing some of my favorite videos when researching the subject seem to only show general hooliganism:
As you can see they have this thing for flares, like a calling card that SWAT teams in those countries are learning to hate. Ultras can be a scarier and more broad subject, much like biker gangs in the US they would give the impression of just being an ordinary futbol fan club with a taste for nationalism, and that the police imposing themselves is heavyhanded. But the suspicions are all warranted as it's drunken jingoism for sports and nation colliding, seeing the modernized Neo Fascist or Neo Nazi organizations, invigorated by today's European socioeconomic conditions and globalization, recruiting the hooligan youths into their cause. With that, lines are blurred between fandom and rallies:
Similar to how most of the talk for Brazil 2014 before the games started was more about all the fears of riots happening and all the damage being caused on the country and its people just to get this event done, the ultras have sparked the discussion on how Moscow 2018 will go. Russia and most of Eastern Europe have been increasingly fertile grounds for this phenomenon, and even without the sport there's the organizations at the scenes being surrounded by nationalities from all over the world coming in and surrounding them, nobody knowing how they're gonna react to that.
Maybe it's a good thing The Islanders were terrible and they disbanded! To the tune of an empty Sony Store nobody wanting to get their autographs. I was there when that happened, it was funny!
- AA
