I planned to make this post as Balkano survivor pt5, but I can't act like football hooliganism exist only on Balkans Peninsula. No, it is a problem in the whole world.

Each city, especially in Europe has a football club and the fans. Each city has it's own colors and many crazy people are ready to die for these colors. When you take your kid to watch a football match and you feel unsafe when you look at the stands where those fans going wild like beasts and you don't want your kid to see it. It distorts the picture of sport and the point of the game!
When I travel somewhere, I know that I need to avoid these groups and football matches. I learned that from the people who came here and made that terrible mistake. Well, I am proud of hospitality of my people but I am also ashamed of behavior of these groups. Nobody can say that they are doing that things because they are very young! No, they are not, you can find them in all ages.

So, what is the main goal of football hooligans?

Football hooligans are less interested in football match but more interested in violent conflict with other gangs and fans. Their leaderships claim that their behavior is result of bad politics.

Well, that's pointless, because every European country change it's political direction very often and you can't act as the football problems are only problems in that country. This hooliganism can attract young, male people that are emotionally tied with domestic football team. But, in most cases, they don't even like their players, they don't support club leadership. In Croatia, they often organize public demonstrations claiming their rights... OK, why should any football hooligan have more rights than the rest of us?

I admit that their songs are beautiful and they can really be the extra player in the match. They can be very supportive and affect on the players to play with more energy. But why they must act as cavemen after the game?

Their main function is to insult and hurt other's team players and fans. They throw objects in the pitch during the match. Imagine how stupid you must be to throw a flare or a Molotov cocktail on the pitch during the game? In many cases, they prevented the players to finish the match. They are constantly trying to interrupt the match calling other team's fans to meet them on the pitch and fight them.
Well, police is doing pretty good job trying to prevent this, but they just can't control them after the came. Then, you can see real battle of hooligans. They fight with their bare hands and, in many cases, someone has a knife or a gun and things can't end up good. Police can separate them, but they can meet somewhere else. When you see in your city some football hooligans from the rival city, you will find them breaking windows and doing damage on the every way they can. These visitors act very violent towards the people from the city and they look for the every minor reason to beat up someone.

If you are going to watch a football match in the rival city, and if you are going with your car, with licence plates that suggest that you are from other city, don't expect to find your car in one piece!

When we have a football match here in Šibenik, and when fans from other cities come here, police escort their bus and try to keep peace. But they cannot prevent the hate speech and the hate itself. Does young people really want war? Didn't we have enough of violence and hate?

So, we are in peace with the rest of the world but we must hate each other? We must fight and kill each other? Because of football???

Croatian fans disgrace our country wherever they come. There were many cases in which Croatian fans attack the police in some other country. When Croats go to a football match in foreign country, don't expect to see less of 300 of them. After the game, they will terrorize the city, break in shops and attack the police. And we are asking ourselves why the rest of the world thinks that we are primitive? This hatred is even more pronounced between our own cities. About 70 km north from me is the city of Zadar, and the young people from that city hate me only because I am from Šibenik! There are some exemptions, but that's how it goes here.

Some country found the way to control this ugly situation with football fans, we are still trying and it is not going so well!