Why football cannot have its cake and eat it

Insideworldfootball

In Britain this has been a great week for turning the clock back promoted by the death of Lady Thatcher and a necessary look back at her legacy.

Yet it is too simplistic to see the riots by Millwall fans at the Wembley semi-final as a return to the old spectre of football hooligan. There is, of course a historical twist to this. With the riots coming just days before Thatcher was laid to rest it was natural to reflect that it was Millwall and their riotous fans back in 1985 filling British television screens with violence which first prompted the Lady to think that the only solution for such behaviour was more stringent police control. This, followed by other acts of football hooliganism that caused deaths, led to the dreadful, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to impose ID cards on football spectators.