The first time was in 1991 and it was a Frenchman’s turn. His name was Frédéric Rouquier and a group of Boixos Nois skins, Barcelona’s ultras, stabbed him when he was leaving an Espanyol-Sporting in old Sarrià. They chose him at random, to avenge the stabbing of a Boixo they called Draculín, who calmly recounted the feat of his colleagues from the hospital. That same year, Eufrasio Alcázar also died, after four Real Madrid ultras cornered him at the entrance to the Santiago Bernabéu subway and stabbed him with a 15-centimeter knife shouting “fucking Indian.” The colors don’t matter. Aitor Zabaleta, a 28-year-old Real Sociedad fan, was murdered by Ricardo Guerra, a member of Bastión, an ultra group of the Atlético Front, who is on the street today and still belongs to the radicals. The same ones who participated in the murder of the Deportivo de La Coruña fan Francisco Romero Taboada, alias jimmywho was thrown into Manzanares after being beaten up and who this weekend, as Patricia Ortega Dolz told this newspaper, appeared in the photos of the so-called entertainment stands.
The list of fatalities is somewhat longer, not counting the beatings, threats and terror spread in the stands of stadiums and in the streets, especially during the violent nineties. At that time, in some neighborhoods, and not always the most depressed ones, because there were also posh guys from the good house destroying bars, it was scary to step onto the street in whatever shirt or appearance. You avoided some parks, certain places, the surroundings of a stadium. The day your team played you went out without your scarf or shirt, lest you get beaten up like some unsuspecting friend.
Football, even though they sang and shouted louder than anyone else, was the least of it. And over time that pretext evaporated and the only reason for all that emerged: money. Criminal groups dedicated to beatings, security in nightclubs, reselling tickets that frightened clubs gave them, drug trafficking, prostitution. In Spain. But also in the rest of Europe. In France the radicals of Lille, those of PSG or those of Olympique de Marseille compete in the staging of terror. In Italy the prosecution has already shown that the ‘Ndrangheta has taken control of the corners of Juve, Inter and Milan. Theoretically opposing Ultras, who often meet outside the stadium to join forces and amicably share their business, based on a single premise: fear.
And it must be that emotion, so difficult to judge, that also leads some players to behave in a different way. Some negotiate with the ultras, talk with them in the back of a stadium so that they agree to allow a match that 500 million people are watching in their homes to be played. Others, those from Athletic, disgrace their radical fans by launching flares in the Roma stadium and their coach shows his embarrassment at the press conference. It must be fear, or bravery and serenity, that also led Busquests-Ferrer, a referee with hardly any international experience, to stop a match and focus on the real problem, and others, like the one who whistled for Real Sociedad-Anderlecht, to continue as if nothing was happening when the players were inviting him to stop the game. And it must also be that terror, which pushed some clubs to kick criminals out of their stands, and others to continue negotiating with them or excusing them with some kind of “yes, but it’s just that…”. It has to be fear. Otherwise, for all the dead, there is no one who understands it.
