Review of Chapter 5 Sport and Crime

 Chapter 5 Modes of Surveillance, Governance and Surveillance in Sport

This chapter looks at the ‘security legacy’ that follows from hosting mega sorts events that involves a general surveillance of populations and the more individual surveillance, governance and policing of athletes bodies. I am glad to see attention to the mundane as well as the exceptional.

The work of Roche (2000) on the Berlin (1936) and Barcelona (1996) is highlighted and borrowing from Critical Security Studies safety and security at mega events is considered before examining three aspects of sports surveillance: 1) for ‘safety’ and ‘security’; 2) ‘lateral surveillance’ and 3) of athletic bodies and performance.

So we need to be very careful in asking for whom security and safety are promised and on what terms. So we see how ‘hooliganism and ‘terrorism’ are utilised. Intriguingly by Baudrillard to call out Mrs Thatcher’s terrorism against the miners but most often by states to impose security apparatus that lingers on in legacy form. And, it might be said, to blame hooliganism for all problems in sport and specifically Liverpool fans. They note also the confluence of discourses around hooliganism and terrorism.

The promised legacy of mega events rarely occurs but the that of surveillance lingers on. Even one-off events like a Champions League final or Super Bowl often leads to greater surveillance. Though I would suggest some cities are now so densely surveilled that the presence or effect of additional surveillance might be difficult to assess. And, anecdote again, my attendance at the Rugby World Cup suggested to me that Tokyo city was so large that the the event was barely noticed beyond the stadium and fan zone. But note Millward et al quote South Wales Police on the use of a Champions League Cup in Cardiff to ‘test and prove concepts’. However, this did not go well (BBC, 2018) and was critically contested by fans and commentators.

Much is made of the use of CCTV and it would have been nice if some of material on this were quoted. For instance Crime control or crime culture TV? and As Easy as AB and CCTV one of the first pieces of work on such matters (1994!).

The encouragement for players or fans to inform on each other is pictured as ‘peer monitoring’ or 'lateral surveillance'.

As my talk to UEFA shows (see above) I am particularly concerned for the rights of athletes in their own right but also down the line of all of us. It is interesting to see that the ‘whereabouts’ procedures are described as ‘draconian’ by Andy Murray. We keep less tight tabs on convicted dangerous and sexual offenders.

I think Millward et al are right to note the greater impact of many of these things in the global south. But within the global north they note disparities with the National Basketball Association’s dress code squarely aimed at the many young black athletes on their rosters (see Kennedy and Silva, 2020 on similar in the National Hockey League).