Sponsorship fees sponsored by the police: What is really behind the incidents at the stadium in Haifa

Incidents of police violence at the end of the game between Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Tel Aviv should be a warning light not only to football fans, but to anyone who understands that there is a parable about the functioning of the Israel Police.

Nir Kipnis on protectionism, games of honor and fans who come from love and encounter bismarckers sent to vent their nerves

Nir Kipnis

22/02/2022

Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 12:30 p.m.

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Summary: Maccabi Haifa - Hapoel Tel Aviv 0: 2 (Sport 1)

Football fans are well acquainted with the ritual: the fan comes to the pitch, sometimes he is no longer young, sometimes he is with small children whom he wants to introduce into the family tradition (in the case of my team I will admit it is a kind of abuse, but it is already a matter for another column).

He comes to the pitch just to have fun, to crack kernels in the stands, to meet old acquaintances, to polish his throat a bit with songs of encouragement - and hopefully - also to jump for joy in the exiles and cuddle with strangers.

All this in planning in the living room at home, when you cover the children's neck with a scarf, put some candy in a small bag, sometimes a bottle of soft drink - and imagine the family hug in victory, or God forbid, the speech that will carry in the children's ears with loss, to teach them what loyalty and true sympathy is , Which does not depend on anything.

You are also preparing for an encounter with all shades of Israeli society: how to explain to children that sooner or later one of the neighbors will stand up and shout at one of the players or the coach: "I wish your children got cancer in the head" - and

An educational dilemma that those who grew up in football stands knew long before the other funnels of the melting pot - the urban high school, the tent in training and the course for preventative driving - the frameworks that force on the normative person also encounters slightly less routine types.

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Coming from love, and encountering the police.

Football fans (Photo: Berni Ardov)

But nothing prepares the football fan who comes from love for a meeting with the Israeli police.

It usually starts outside a stadium where too few gates always open.

In most of the enlightened world it has been understood that queues create friction and pressure (this is even before the danger of infection brought with it by the corona) that causes stress, a mental state that encourages violent behavior, but deal with enough security people, optical readers instead of ushers at the entrance and more.

In Israel, on the other hand, every bastard is king: no football fan has ever seen a police officer shout the call that a slave recognizes that he will reign: "Everyone is two meters back or no one enters."

Of course walking two meters back, with the crowd pressure on your back, is not a practical option, but the main thing is that the ego challenger got what he wanted - he runs the event.

And that's not all: of course: the rules of encouragement help vary from field to field - there are places where the force commander decides on the field that drums should not be put in, for example, there are those who are hostile to rods used for flags - and I will never forget Confetti, when the police officer announced that the bag in his hand should not be put in.

When the father, i.e. me, inquired to know if anyone had ever been harmed as a result of the confetti being thrown, the policeman shouted: "One more word I stop you!"

- On drinking bottles (filled in the original configuration, but there are stadiums where even a water canteen for children in the shape of Mickey Mouse is a reason for not entering the field) and even fruit, I am no longer talking.

It would be nice if there was uniformity, but as usual in Israel, every responsible officer feels like a sheriff.

And that's another good part, because so far we've been talking about the blue police, before meeting the black-haired people wearing the batons.

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Tough cops or violent militias? (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Motivation of violence

The following sentence may cause injustice to people who enlisted in the police in faith and with the intention of being loyal public servants, so I will restrain him, but I will not refrain from saying it: Some recruits, probably a unit like the JSM, also have negative motivations: love of uniform, weapons and especially power

. Not a local problem of the Israel Police, but a challenge faced by police organizations around the world: on the one hand you want your police officers tough and striving for contact. On the other hand, you do not want violent militias. In a smart police organization, Send them to unload their nerves in football.

In fact, you should be precise - not only in football, but in the most wrong places.

Not to raid estates where crime barons live, not to collect sponsorship fees in the south, not to the car racing organizers on Route 90 - in most of these arenas the good guys from the police prefer not to be.

Not to be outdone, someone once told me that they are afraid, not of the incident itself but of the consequences: "When you see a child killed in a village because of blood revenge, you ask where the police are, but the policeman thinks of his children. Going underground, no one will be able to keep them. "

Do you understand?

We were to Colombia.

Where does the police appear and demonstrate their full power?

In demonstrations by ultra-Orthodox, in demonstrations by right-wing activists, in demonstrations that were against the former prime minister in Balfour - and of course, also on the football fields.

I am not a fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv, but the videos from the events of the game against Maccabi Haifa with Sami Ofer are shocking.

When you see a bunch of YSMs brutally hitting a boy lying on the floor, it looks like an attack by a bunch of criminals, not like law enforcement - and no matter what that boy said, if at all.

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Police violence (Photo: Official website, from Twitter)

Damage to Reputation

Precisely on the day when the Israel Police cleared itself of some of the disgrace it had received from the publications about the use of offensive cyber, it had to deal - through its direct guilt - with the sights from which police violence is implied.

It's not that I'm worried about the fate of the uniformed attacker's career: even if an investigation is opened against him, a false affidavit will suffice to dissolve it until the case is closed.

I fear for the fate of the sane crowd that decides to get to the football fields and instead of a sports experience for the whole family gets a horror movie.

One more time you can suppress, after the second time you are already moving away from the local football scene - there are enough games from Europe live on TV.

Did we say Europe?

For years they have tried to deal with the problems of football violence with the help of a police force - while treating the fan base as a herd that needs to be restrained, instead of realizing that 90% of them are customers who need to have a respectful experience.

As part of the lessons learned from disasters like Hillsborough they have made stadiums more pleasant places, but at the same time have greatly toughened the penalties on those who disrupt order.

They did not do this by sending huge and violent forces to the stands, in order to snatch as much as they could, but on the contrary - precisely by distancing them from the potential of a potential riot.

Football stadiums (yes, even in Israel) have hundreds of cameras that monitor almost every movement, with very few dead areas.

Instead of the videos distributed today by the Israel Police to "prove" that there were violent elements among the Hapoel Tel Aviv fans (I tell them in advance - of course there were!) One should simply go to the security cameras.

If there is a clear and immediate danger of committing a crime, one can of course stop the same fan on the spot, with tweezers and not with those.

Time for emergency measures.

Hili Trooper (Photo: Reuven Castro)

If not, let him come home and send him a summons for questioning the next day, based on security photo analysis.

Of course such a move should be backed by a minimum standard of punishment that would oblige the judges (those with the hammer, not with the whistle) to impose actual prison sentences on anyone convicted of violating public order and at the same time allow clubs to sue for damages not only for property damage but also damage. Harms the reputation of the game.

You don't have to invent the wheel, you just have to see what they did in countries like England, Germany and the Netherlands that suffered from much more serious hooliganism - not just throwing objects but mass fights that ended in deaths.

Instead of telling us that "the fans have started", you better leave those who are fleeing the fight against crime, but heroes of football fans off the field - and start acting on a spot.

This should not only be a demand of the audience, but also of the Football Association, of the league director, of the broadcasters, the betting settlement council and everyone who enjoys the product called Israeli football.

Imagine that tomorrow all those factors would unite - and despite the knowledge that the move involves a point financial loss, they would shut down the defensive league, just when it seemed to start, until the Minister of Sports, one of Israel's most committed and pleasant ministers, would put on the table a minimum penalty. Using cameras and ... yes, also removing the police from the plots.

What would have happened?

And maybe I'm as naive as the team I've been involved with since childhood and have to go after the money at all: the police who determine the number of cops needed for each game - and at the same time enjoy a fat overtime cash register at a high rate for cops it sends to the pitches.

Wait, there's a situation where we'll come up with something here: why should the police fight Gobi Protection, who turned the lives of business owners in the south into hell, while they themselves are doing the same thing on the football fields?

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• Police violence

• Hapoel Tel Aviv