It’s just a question of moral courage

Yesterday Atlético Madrid announced their decision to distance themselves from the Frente Atlético ultra group by means of their expulsion from the club as an official fan group. They have also requested that the police provide a dossier of those fans that are considered violent with a view to expelling them from the club for life. Meanwhile Deportivo, have decided to close the part of the stadium normally occupied by the Riazor Blues, for two matches ‘as a symbolic and provisional measure’. It doesn’t sound the same. There are those who may interpret this as a gesture of mourning for the ultra who died or even a gesture against the acts of hooliganism. But at least it’s a start.

At the same time, the debate rages on about the concealed 215 match tickets that were sent to Galicia without the police being made aware. Atlético tried to clear up the issue with two dispatch receipts, one from the 11th, the ‘official’ batch of tickets, the other sent on November 27th, the stash that wound up in the hands of the ultra group. Both were sent to the same address, that of Riazor stadium. Police in A Coruña yesterday interrogated the head of the club’s fan-groups who picked up the second packet of tickets that facilitated the Riazor Blues to embark on their senseless and sinister meeting with Frente Atlético. The first inquiries reflect poorly on Deportivo, as the match tickets arrived at the clubs main office.

What will come from all of this remains to be seen, but it could be seen as a turning point, one that will generate a degree of sensitivity amongst general fans against the ultra movement. This happened in the cycling world with doping, and has occurred with police corruption, it’s time to say enough is enough. It’s understood that what was previously tolerated has proven to be intolerable. It’s just a question of moral courage. A determination that Joan Laporta showed shortly after arriving at Barça. We can’t keep permitting that every fifteen day’s the nastiest elements of any city meet up in the stadium and try and spread their poison.

from Últimas noticias | Diario AS http://ift.tt/1yIeC81

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