These aren’t fans: FFA needs to turf the thugs out of soccer

Let’s start by accepting that the crowds at AFL and NRL matches are not made up entirely of saints.

Let’s start by accepting that the crowds at AFL and NRL matches are not made up entirely of saints. Abuse of players and rival fans is rife, some of it unnecessarily offensive. Violence, drunkenness, racism, stupidity ... they all raise their ugly heads occasionally.

The AFL is investigating an incident in the JLT Community series match between West Coast and Port Adelaide on Sunday, in which a group of fans were allegedly racially abused by a fellow spectator.

Rugby crowds do not consist exclusively of well-mannered blokes in jackets with leather patches on the elbows. Sometimes even Waratahs and Reds fans step over the line.

But A-League fans — or, to be more precise, a minority of A-League fans — take crowd misbehaviour to a whole new and completely unacceptable level.

When was the last time you saw flares being let off at an NRL game? Can you recall gangs of fans turning up at an AFL game wearing matching T-shirts emblazoned with “F. K AFL”? Or perhaps you’ve seen a couple of banners depicting a rival coach involved in a sex act at a Super Rugby game. Mmmm, I doubt it.

And yet all the above and more have been on display at A-League games in the past few months — mostly the work of the Western Sydney Wanderers fan group, the Red and Black Bloc.

The FFA and the Wanderers have attempted to crack down on these galloots, who have little interest in football and are mostly there for the fight. But to no avail.

Despite a heavy police presence they managed to sneak their flares and banners into Allianz Stadium and set about ruining it for the genuine fans.

Perhaps the most offensive — and cowardly — of the banners was one that simply read “1312”. It means “All Cops Are Bastards”. The numbers represent the letters ACAB. Good grief.

Wanderers boss John Tsatsimas has promised to find the flare-wavers and deal with them. What the club has done in the past clearly hasn’t worked and what he plans to do differently this time isn’t clear. The FFA is “disappointed” and is threatening the culprits with “normal processes”. They are no doubt quaking in their boots.

This sort of behaviour is just one or two steps back from the sort of violence that blighted soccer in Europe late last century. European authorities had to take drastic action, in concert with police, to force crowd violence out of the game and reclaim it for genuine fans.

The FFA needs to do the same. As the game turns its focus to expansion, crowds are down and TV ratings are slumping. And unless the thugs with flares and offensive banners are drummed out, that trend that will continue.

Wally Mason is The Australian’s Sport Editor