Football, passions, fans and politics

Abstract

During COVID-19 pandemic all football matches throughout the whole Europe were played on empty stadiums. It could be said that those matches were also empty without fans and passions. Football without passion is not a football. A well-known psychologist Conrad Lawerence used to say that football matches are good way to discharge nationalistic passion on a regular way. It is always better for nations and states to wage war on a football stadium than in real wars. Football wars are good for the prevention of real wars. On the other hand, football wars, conflicts of football fans, sometimes precede real wars, or predict real wars. What happened on a Maksimir stadium in Zagreb, before the match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade in 1990 is a good example of a connection between football, fans, passions and politics. But, many centuries before that, something similar has happened in old Vizantia in Carigrad. That event in the period of Justinian, known as a “rebellion of Nika” is the first conflict of fans and the first event when sport has played political role. The author of this text speaks about that. He also analyzes the connection between fans and some groups of organized crime, especially when it comes to drugs. In that sense Jovan Ćirić analyzed one decision of Constitutional Court of Serbia. Few years ago, a public prosecutor requested for prohibition some subgroups of football fans. But those subgroups were not registered as an association of citizens, so the court rejected that request. How to prohibit something that does not exist in a legal sense, that does not have an organizational structure and nobody knows who the members are. Anyway, the links between football and politics are very strong and complex.