The scourge of endemic violence erupting every week in Tunisian football fields becomes more and more worrying and painful for all. Some footages showed us the growing of violence and its multiple forms inside and outside stadiums between youth groups, sometimes between fans of the same team, or through attacking security forces in many sport games, even their team were winners, or sometimes violence fueled by players and supervisors of sports clubs themselves.
Unfortunately, this terrible phenomenon created a frightening and a dire situation in our stadiums which damaged the reputation of this famous game in our country and have alienated some lovers of going to the stadiums.
So, in view of the tremendous violence because of some reckless youth or lack of the players’ awareness, the stadiums become empty and teams have lost their incomes.
The big question is: how security forces can respond when troubles occur, and how ultimately they tackle or curb this nightmare in order to make our stadiums safe?
If we are seeking the resumption of people who are fond of sports without fear and boredom, we must endeavour in countering this problem, not being limited to security measures, or keeping security forces alone in the face of violence if we want to ensure safe environment for fans.
All stakeholders, namely involved clubs, committees of supporters, civil society, political parties and families …must be committed to exert their efforts in order to strongly fight this unacceptable phenomenon which harm our society. We must move to action if we want really to prevent and end this violence in our stadiums.
Ben Rhouma Chedly
