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Before starting my speech I would like to send my regards to Prof. Dr. Pilz, the person whom I’m making studies for the last one year about violence and fair-play in sport. The matter of violence in sport has started as the first humans were on earth and is still capturing most of the parts of our life. The problem of violence and sport can be properly understood and interpreted only if we observe it in the context of long-term developmental trends.
Transformation of violence in sport
According to Elias (2, 279ff), society still accepts violence as an integral part of sporting competition, but, compared with the “feasts for the eyes of earlier phases”, it represents” a very moderate incarnation of transformed tendencies to attack and inflict cruelty.” This attenuation of physical violence can be illustrated by examining the origins and evolution of the rules for various sports, whose history is also the history of the increasing limitation of physical violence. Compared with the present day, earlier forms of sport were much more loosely organized, more variable, many times tougher, wilder, more brutal, and permitted a considerably higher level of socially-accepted violence. However, in comparison with everyday situations, the level of physical violence permitted in sport is still considerable. A boxer’s knock-out blow, a hockey-player’s body check, or a football-player’s tackle would land normal members of society in jail if they behaved like that in the street. Violence in competitive sport tends to be regarded as normal.
Elias’s thesis of the increasing limitation and control of physical violence can be supported only if we distinguish between expressive and instrumental violence. Expressive violence means violent behaviour which is exercised and experienced pleasurably without burdening the social conscience. Instrumental violence means behaviour which is exercised in a calculating, planned and rational way that exceeds the levels tolerated in society in pursuance of higher aims (e.g. success). This is based on the idea that human behaviour is governed to an increasing extent by simple cost-benefit calculations and that illegitimate behaviour is seen as a fully rational way of solving conflicts.
The thesis of the limitation of violence thus applies to expressive violence. The extent of physical violence which is tolerated varies from sport to sport. Types of sport permitting a high level of physical violence tend to be practised mainly by or in social and cultural situations in which physical violence is still seen as a legitimate way of pursuing aims (1). The thesis of the limitation of physical violence thus has to be modified to take account of the fact that the balance between expressive and instrumental violence is shifting in favour of the latter. For example, it has been shown that with increasing age and membership of sports clubs, young footballers increasingly internalize an interpretation of fairness which includes the idea of the ”fair foul” (6). It is also possible that when instrumental forms of violence become normal, they are gradually experienced and exercised pleasurably by sports people, and that the boundaries between expressive and instrumental violence become fuzzy.
This interpretation of fair play, or this instrumental violence on the part of sportspeople, also influences the behaviour and expectations of spectators. Galtung (4) drew attention to this phenomenon, which he named cultural violence. This type of violence does not kill or maim, but it does supply justifications for violence through the value system. It is precisely cultural violence, in the form of the hierarchy of values in a modern industrial society and in competitive sport that prepares the ground for personal violence.
Interrelation between violence by sportspeople and by spectators
In their research into spectator behaviour in football, Gabler, Schulz and Weber (3) showed that it is above all at sporting events with high levels of physical contact that spectators’ readiness to resort to violence increases significantly. Violence on the field thus amplifies the emotionality, aggression and tendency to resort to violence on the terraces. Moreover, sportspeople’s behaviour influences the expectations of the spectators. Rule infringements to increase the success of their own team are seen as legitimate in the sense of cultural violence, and are actually demanded.
The media play an important role here. Whilst they are not the cause of violence in and associated with sport, they do supply the lubricant for the process of escalating violence.
In addition to personal and cultural violence in sport, there is a third dimension of violence to be considered: structural violence.
Symptoms of structural violence in sport: violence through sport
Structural violence is a form of violence which emanates not from individuals but from the structures of a social system. If we speak of structural violence in sport, we correspondingly assume that violence is perpetrated not only by participants in sport, but also by the structures of sport.
A classification might distinguish the following types of structural violence through sport:
• Change and continuing evolution of sports equipment, clothing, and facilities in pursuance of the competitive maxim, ”higher, faster, further”, even at the expense of the athletes themselves
• Performance sport for children, with a premature fixation of children on a striving for success regardless of the cost and risk of damage to the body, social relations and health of young people
• Intensity of training and frequency of competitions which scarcely leave time for physical regeneration and necessitate substitution in the form of pharmacological manipulation
• Competition schedules which are determined to a decreasing extent by the interests of athletes and their health, and to an increasing extent by the media and advertising agencies with a view to the most easily marketable times
• Competition norms that are set so high that they can hardly be achieved without resort to banned pharmacological manipulation in many disciplines
• Pollution and destruction of the natural environment through the growing diversification of leisure sport in the direction of experiencing nature, adventure, excitement and risk, and the demands placed on nature by large-scale international sporting events – led by the summer and winter Olympics
• Commercialization and professionalization, leading to the collapse of traditional supporters’ and fan-clubs (5).
Galtung (4) suggests that when structural violence is institutionalized and cultural violence is internalized, there is an increasing danger that direct, personal violence will also spread. He thus indicates that preventive measures must take cultural and structural violence as their starting point. This applies in equal measure to sport and society. The causes of violence connected with sport, above all hooliganism, are illustrations of this fact.
Hooliganism – violence associated with sport
Basically, two types of motivation for hooliganism can be distinguished. The first motive is self-assertion as a consequence of structural violence, which means that social deprivation or lack of personal success seek compensation through violence. This motive is chiefly found among members of the lower levels of society who have difficulty developing a positive identity, preparing for adult roles, finding their own way of assuming these roles, or finding fulfilment as personalities with their own interests and capabilities. When these things are impossible, such people turn to violence (8).
The motive of self-realization as a consequence of cultural violence, which occurs mainly among the higher levels of society, is mostly aimed at protecting and maintaining the individual’s uniqueness by means of Machiavellian behaviour along the lines of ”whatever is useful to me is good” and ”success justifies the means”. It is individual needs which are satisfied here. Hooligans come from all levels of society.
A further dimension can be added as the ”authentic experience”, which, among other things, stems from constrictions, restraints and a lack of freedom of action, which represent another type of structural violence. In this case, violence substitutes for the actual satisfaction of the need for adventure, excitement and risk.
Violence – not a male preserve
An examination of research into violence reveals that gender-specific differences in violent behaviour are largely seen as “natural”, and therefore unalterable. However, violence is not natural and unalterable, but is occasioned by power relations and is an expression of the balance of power between men and women. With a decrease in the power differential between men and women, the opportunities for violence on the part of women come into line with those of men. This can be particularly well illustrated from the area of competitive sport (5,7). The attitudes towards achievement, competition and success which are dominant in modern industrial societies are also evident in women’s sport. Being violent, competition- and performance-oriented and ready to take risks is not a male preserve. As a consequence of gender-specific processes of emancipation, an increase in physical violence by and among women is evident (opening up to women of types of sport with a large proportion of violence and risk at the Olympic Games and world championships of professional associations).
