Hooligan profiling? That just ain’t right

June 14th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

So, we’ve got an interesting little hooligan story coming out of this here World Cup.

Germany v. Poland is later today and the Polish fans have come spewing across the border to support their team. It seems that 40 Polish fans have been arrested for…well read this section of the AP story and let me know why they were arrested.

Four known hooligans were arrested near the soccer stadium and found to have knives after Polish police in town for the game pointed them out to German authorities, Dortmund police spokesman Georg Blaszyk said.”They won’t be seeing the game,” he said.
The other 36, most arrested near the city center, also were known hooligans, Blaszyk said.

Nowhere in that little snippet or anywhere else in the article does it indicate any real motive (the knives maybe) as to why these fans were arrested, other than the fact that they are known hooligans. That’s just hooligan profiling and I don’t think it’s fair.

If they’re being rowdy before the game (even if it’s somewhat calm) you go drop the hammer down and tell them to cut it out or you’ll arrest them. But if they’re sitting having a beer with other Poland supporters near the city center in Dortmund, cops shouldn’t be allowed to mess with them. (Again, I’m not positive this is what they were doing, but the article doesn’t indicate otherwise.)

Okay, hold up. I’ve found more evidence of this. In England, they stopped a known hooligan from getting on a plane to come to Germany and apparently British police have the power to stop any convicted hooligan from going to the World Cup. This guy was arrested under the ‘Football Disorder Act’ in England.

Okay, so I guess I’m wrong. If you’re a hooligan and the cops know it, you’re done for. I guess it’s kinda like a sex offender showing up to a 10-year-old’s birthday party in the States or something.

But still, I don’t know, hooligan profiling? I thought in the year 2006 we were beyond all this in society, but I guess we still have a ways to go. Sigh.

(P.S. I’ll be live-blogging the Tunisia-Saudi Arabia game over at Deadspin this afternoon. The game starts at 11:55 am EST. Join me over there, won’t you? I’ll be back here after that.)

(Update: Finally, a real reason to arrest some hooligans.)