A few years ago, the mere mention of the term “organized crowd” automatically referred to the sense of violence. What most people are unaware of is the fact that the first organized crowd in Brazil was female. Exactly: At the beginning of Atlético Mineiro’s performances, women went to the stadiums with uniformed flags to accompany their husbands. It is obvious that at that time violence did not even pass near the stadium, which means that organized supporters are not and should not be synonymous with violence.
Gradually, fans began to group together, in order to organize the fans to follow their teams in the stadiums. The first manifestation of this type – with the exception of women carrying flags – corresponds to the São Paulo Futebol Clube, in 1939. Soon after, Internacional, in Rio Grande do Sul, and Fluminense, in Rio de Janeiro, also adopted this model. .
In this sense, in the most recent terms, organized supporters are defined as a group of supporters who constantly follow the teams during their matches at the stadium, and dress and behave collectively. It is quite obvious that, inserted in a capitalist universe and involving a large number of fans, the teams and associations responsible for organized supporters began to sell products referring to the teams at a high cost, a fact that makes the mass of organized supporters a highly profitable medium. .
Don’t stop now… There’s more after the publicity 😉
But it was in the 90s of the 20th century that the fans acted in episodes of extreme collective violence: cases of deaths were constantly reported after the end of the matches, when the fans met. Although many people believed that this was a problem restricted to large Brazilian cities, hooligans in England are an excellent example that sports fanaticism is far from being a typical Brazilian characteristic.
In any case, Brazilian or not, violence needed to be fought with efficient policies for this purpose. And it was. The fear of going to the stadium, in big cities, still haunts most people. However, the organizers of the championships have offered better structural conditions for the fans, in addition to incorporating initiatives together with the Military Police, to ensure the entrance and exit of the fans. A fact that has shown considerable improvements in the organization of stadiums and, consequently, allows greater security for fans to follow their teams closely.
By Paula Rondinelli
Collaborator