Hooligan

You are coming to Japan to see the soccer games for the FIFA World Cup in 2002. This is the first time to hold jointly in two counties. Both of the host countries, Korea and Japan also welcome the Cup for the first time. Joint site will be contributable to not only symbolizing the new era of globalization but also promoting the mutual intimacy between two countries sometimes politically conflicted. It has another good aspect besides them. The World Cup is so popular worldwide as it's called human festival that many fans rush to the host country from all over the world. If many people come together at once, there will be big troubles in the transportation systems and the limited number of stadiums. Especially chronically overcrowded Japan would not deal with potential troubles well. Joint site can scatter such kind of risks to two countries. In this sense, the World Cup for joint site is a very good case for risk management.

The joint site can avert overcrowd. In the stadiums, however, there are some risks. One of them is riots done by so called hooligans. They are the enthusiastic football fans who cause riots at stadiums, often triggered by alcohol and some kind of mob psychology. It's rather impolite to real football fans in calling them one type of football funs. They may just go to football stadiums for the purpose of causing riots. There are, of course, a lot of enthusiastic fans in Japan according to the increasing popularity. But no halogens like the ones seen in Europe have not yet been recognized.

In that Europe, there have been tragic incidents caused by hooligans. Hooligans have appeared in seventies in England. One of the outstanding tragedies, for example, is the one that happened in Belgium in 1985. English hooligans assaulted Iranian spectators in the final game for the European championship, resulting in 39 deaths. Moreover 4 years later, nearly 100 spectators in one of the big football games were crushed to death because some of spectators turned into a mob. The risk is not only toward the spectators. Neighboring shops or restaurants also might get involved in riots caused by hooligans. This is not other people's affairs. Despite the no-hooligan campaigns, about 900 English hooligans have been arrested just recently.

To take preventive measures against hooligans from the legal point of view, the Japanese government passed the revised Immigration Control Law, which comes into effect in March 2002. The revision makes it possible to refuse the entry of the people who get expulsion orders by causing riots or destructive activities on structures in international games in the past. Although the revised law is some effective, it can't prevent the entries of potential hooligans.

It seems to be very difficult for individuals to take countermeasures against hooligans. Once you got involved in some kind of riots at stadiums, you couldn't easily escape from it. To say the preventive measures you can do, you keep the seat nearest the exits to make it easy to run away as soon as hooligan is recognized. But it's impossible to choose where you want to sit down because the tickets aren't easily available. You feel it lucky even to get one of them. As for another countermeasure, you get out of stadiums before the games finish. Even hooligans won't cause riots while the games are in full swing. However, this is also unacceptable to enthusiastic football fans. The World Cup is held once in 4 years. Particularly this time it's in Japan.

As far as the hooligan risk is concerned, there are many parts of preventive measures that depend on the authority. The measures, for example, are how many police will be deployed at stadiums, how the medical system will be established during the World Cup and so on. Actually, some of them have already been considered. Nevertheless, we can't eliminate 100% of the risk with the third party dependent risk management. The best choice is to watch the games on TV at home for the fear of hooligans. You can avoid the risk completely. But as enthusiastic football fans, as long as you go to stadiums, you have to brace for the risk. Taking risks or even recognizing the existence of risks is also important for risk management to achieve your dreams.

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