Health and Safety Aspects of Crowd Management - Essay Example

Health and Safety Aspects of Crowd Management in the Sports Industry [Name of Presenter] [Name of Institution] Health and Safety Aspects of Crowd Management in the Sports Industry "Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting." George Orwell In sports, which are inherently violent, violence shoots beyond what is legally permitted in particular sport. Add to this the enthusiasm of a crowd and it’s the recipe for disaster. Often well defined guidelines serve to limit the occurance of violence through ground management rules and construction regulations of sport complexes. But sometimes, disaster strikes despite the best efforts of regulators and enforcers. This paper seeks to examine the cause of such violence and efforts to curb them. Competitive sports involve aggressive tactics, but not violence. In fact sportsmanship itself seeks to portray non-violent agression and healthy competition. Not always though do players and spectators stick to this moral code. Games like football, basketball, ice hockey, baseball etc. involve the same aggressive tactics. Sporting matches such as boxing, water polo and rugby involve physical contacts by the players and are more prone to ignite a rift with fiery passion. In games such as cricket, where there is no physical contact, there is little violence among sportsmen themselves. Even abusing a player or the umpire in cricket is a punishable offence. Most contacts in the so called ‘contact sports’ are not violent in nature. Conflicts erupt when people commit major mistakes, when the will to win surpasses the objective of common good, races out of the boundaries of those set by the rules of the game, the passion to achieve and more importantly the will to win at all costs. Such bviolence may include threats, physical harm, or even death involving sports men, athletes, coaches, fans, spectators, or among parents of young athletes such as in school and inter school competitions. Some psychologists suggest that Intermittent Explosive Disorder may be the cause of such violence. Most athletes have unusually high levels of testosterone and animal behaviour analysis or ethology suggests that this one of the causes of heightened succesptibility of such athletes to violence. Though such violence falls outside the ‘good’ areas of such sports, they still resort to it. Contact sports has to include such violence while drafting their code of conduct, so a certain amount of force is legalised while excessive amounts are generally discouraged with penalties including debarring the players or in certain sports, the entire team for a stipulated time period to be decided by the members of the governing bodies of such sports as per their rules and guidance notes. Many a times, sport arenas have also been used by warring contries to settle their scores in full media glare. Violence by athletes In their attempt to intimidate their opponents and reduce tehir confidence levels, sportsmen often resort to violence resulting in injuries to team members. A typical example of this sort of violence is the ‘99 call’ planned and executed by the British Lions Rugby team during their 1974 tour to South Africa. The strategy was devised to counter partiality by home referees to decide not tosee the violence committed by the South African team if they were deemed to have committed any mistakes. It was decided to attack the opponent team outright with full force on hearing the call 99. This was vbased on the assumption that the entire team will not be suspended on charges of violence which would be the case if one person resorted to violence and others did not. In sports such as boxing, such violent behavior by a player is punished with negative points, or in extreme cases, even disqualification. Some such tactics in boxing include punching the opponent behind the head and under the belly during clinching and to the back. Other athletes may push their opponents hardly to the floor and some even hit their opponents violently after the bell goes and the bout has ended. During a 1997 match, Mike Tyson bit off opponent Evander Holfield’s ear. Fan Violence Fans may resort to violence for a large number of reasons. The include: Expression of disappointment on the performance of their favourite team To intimidate opponents Stop a game that is not in favour of their team Anguish over non-availability of entry Reaction to excessive policing Fans fill the streets and the stands and are some times stranded in both the places. Sporting events may give an opportunity to the people to bring up underlying social issues between people of two geographies and in such cases, they resort to violent expression of anguish. In most cases of fan violence, it is related to alcohol consumption and so most sport authorities ban alcohol and in some cases limit their intake. Intoxification is a contentious issue and each nation has its own rules to prevent such intake or conrol the amount of intake. Violence by supporters dates back to the Roman Era – a notable example being the Nika Riots of 532 AD which lasted for a week and resulted in the death of over 30,000 people. The violence occurred during a horse chariot race between four teams from the Roman and Byzantine empires. The English footballers were banned from participating in European championships for a period of six years after the Hysel stadium disaster in the year 1985. Actions of English Football hooligans were widely crfiticised and condemned. England was also warned publically in the recent Euro Cup in 2004 that violence by supporters during the match will result in the teams suspension again. Many known offenders were even prevented from travelling to Portugal for the tournament. Ironically, the Americans went public with their sigh of relief when the british failed to qualify for the 1994 FIFA world cup. “There were three countries in the world whose presence would have created logistical and security problems, so we're very pleased they won't be coming: Iraq, Iran and England”, said Alan Rothenberg, chairman of the World Cup organising committee in the United States in 1994. Sporting events have given loads of glory to the UK in the past. But the same sporting events have also caused UK much disgrace. The government has attempted to study and curb violence at all levels during international sporting events. A brief outline of the legislative intervention to curb violence in sports is given below. While much still requires to be done on the implementation front, these attempts have been a journey in the right direction. Lack of funds and huge expenses incurred in implementing various suggestions have also been impediments tough to cross. Legislative attempts to control violence in sporting events Thed primary source for legislative attempts to curb violence during sports was the set of recommendations set out by the Taylor Report drafted by the committee under the supervision of Lord Taylor of Gosforth. The report was commissioned concerning the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. An interim report The Taylor Report was published in the August of 1989 and a final report was published in January, 1990. The report recommends what measures need to be taken to prevent sporting disasters in future. Major recommendations of Taylor committee: The entire stadium should be built on the all-seater model The football league in England as well as the Scottish football league confirmed to these standards even before the rule was introduced. The report suggested that seating the spectators gave them more space and comfort and prevented them from being pushed around from one corner to the other. This meant that stampedes could not happen and mass stampedes can be managed. The Stand up Sit down organisation was formed to protest against this rule, but therule has been followed intrinsically. Placing of barriers, turnstiles etc The committee after studying various stadia, recommended the setting up of crowd control barriers and turnstiles in various places including the entry to the stadia. Sale of alcohol and beverages The committee banned the sale of alcoholic beverages in the complex and all spectators were frisked for carrying in any such beverage while they turn up for matches. Many other small and minor recommendations were made to the sporting scene of UK after the report was published. However, the Taylor report was the ninth report to be published in this regard. Eight reports and three editions of the green guides had already been published before the Taylor report. They are: Mr Justice Popplewell, whose report following the Bradford Disaster in January, 1986 The Shortt Report of 1924 followed disorder at the Cup Final of 1923 The Moelwyn Hughes Report of 1946 followed the disaster at Bolton Wanderers ground when overcrowding caused 33 deaths. In 1966 the Government commissioned the Chester Report on "The State of Association Football". The Harrington Report of 1968 drew attention to problems of crowd behaviour The Lang Report of 1969 on the same subject. In 1972, Lord Wheatley's Report on Crowd Safety at Sports Grounds followed the disaster at Ibrox Park where 66 spectators died. The McElhone Report of 1977 on Football Crowd Behaviour of Scottish supporters was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Scotland. In 1984 an Official Working Group on Football Spectator Violence set up by the Department of Environment presented a further report. As a result of the Wheatley Report, the first edition of the Green Guide was issued in 1973 Parliament passed the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 A second edition of the Green Guide was issued in1976 A third edition in 1986 incorporated recommendations made by Mr Justice Popplewell The parents of competing athletes sometimes make matters worse. They taunt coaches, staff and volunteers to make their point. Others in their attempts to encourage the ir children, often behave in the most meanest ways. Violence has come to stay with sports in all its glory. Specific attempts to divrce the marriage between the two have so far remained unsuccessful. While violence in games have been contained by international bodies governing the sports, police forces and riot management officials are fighting a hard to win battle on the ground to combat mob violence associated with sports. Construction rules in many contries specify safety measures that prevent the spectator’s bad moods from running in to an uncontrollable mob action. But mob violence still remains a run-away chain reaction that is difficult to arrest and prevent with all the world’s might. Reference Orwell, George (1950). "The Sporting Spirit", Shooting an Elephant. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Co., 153. J. B. Bury, "The Nika Revolt", chapter XV part 5 from History of the Later Roman Empire (1923). Blackstones Police Manual Volume 4 General police duties, Fraser Simpson (2006). pp. 245. Oxford University Press. Berk, Richard A. Collective Behavior. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1974 Buford, Bill. Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. (1990) Turner, Ralph, and Lewis M. Killian. Collective Behavior 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall, 1972 Read More