WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : Chance of Rose Bowl Violence Tempers World Cup Euphoria

The excitement of the local host committee concerning today’s anticipated announcement from Zurich, Switzerland, that eight of the 52 games in the 1994 World Cup, including a semifinal, the third-place game and the final, will be staged at the Rose Bowl should be tempered with the realization that this cup could overflow with hooligans, skinheads, lager louts and others who have turned recent soccer tournaments into security nightmares.

Alan Rothenberg, chairman of the World Cup organizing committee, expressed optimism in an interview last week that the nine U.S. cities involved in the tournament have played host to so many major events, sporting and otherwise, that their law enforcement agencies will be able to prevent disturbances. In particular, he mentioned Los Angeles’ experience with the 1984 Summer Olympics.

“But I’m not a Pollyanna,” he said, adding that the organizing committee sent a security task force to Sweden for the two-week European Championships that ended Friday.

The task force, presumably, will not recommend that the United States follow Sweden’s example. Its “security with a smile” approach, including sales of inexpensive but weak beer in special tents designed to attract potential rabble rousers to central locations, failed. It appears as if the hooligans do not respond to smiles.

They better comprehended the treatment they received during the 1990 World Cup in Italy, where the police met visitors who were considered security threats--primarily those from England, Holland and Germany--at train stations, rounded up those who did not have hotel reservations and deposited them in encampments surrounded by fences, security guards and police dogs.

That was hardly fair to soccer fans from those countries who were in Italy only to follow their teams, and a similar strategy in the United States no doubt would be protested by defenders of civil liberties. But it worked for the Italians, who enjoyed a relatively calm World Cup.

Organizing committee officials believe such measures will not be necessary in the United States, pointing out that many of the problems in Europe were caused by unemployed, disaffected youths who will not be able to afford to travel across the ocean.

They contend that the violence, which most of the time occurs far from the stadiums, has less to do with soccer than with society’s ills, and that blaming the sport would be like holding pro football or ice hockey responsible for the fact that so many gang members wear Raider and King caps or pro basketball because hundreds of people rampaged through Chicago’s streets after the Bulls won the NBA title.

Perhaps. But it is a guess that the organizers would breathe easier if certain teams, England, for instance, fail to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. That would be a pity from strictly a soccer point of view because England is the sport’s birthplace, and its presence on the field enriches any tournament.

A more detailed look into the phenomenon of soccer-related violence is available in a recently published book, “Among the Thugs,” by American author Bill Buford, who conducted his research by becoming part of a gang of English hooligans.

“So many young people were out of work or had never been able to find any,” he writes, referring to the social upheaval as England changes from a working class to a service economy. “The violence, it followed, was a rebellion of some kind--social rebellion, class rebellion, something.”

But he writes that the anarchy also has an addictive quality, “an adrenaline-induced euphoria,” that even overwhelmed him. He suffered for it while traveling with the pack on Sardinia, the island to which the English team was exiled during the first-round of 1990 World Cup, when he was brutally beaten by Italian police.

The most positive development from the European Championships was the emergence of another type fan, Denmark’s roligans, who are on a crusade to improve the image of soccer enthusiasts by adopting decidedly anti-violent behavior. The word roligan is coined from the Danish word for peace.

The second-most positive development again is a tribute to the Danes. In the remarkable victories over the Dutch in the semifinals and the Germans in the final, Denmark proved that an overmatched team can play constructive, offensive soccer and still win.

Of all the world’s soccer fans, perhaps the most passionate are the Italians.

In Italy’s professional leagues, as in the leagues in other European countries, teams that finish at the bottom of their divisions suffer the indignity of relegation for the next season to a lower division. It would be like the Dodgers and Angels, presuming their fortunes do not improve in the second half of the season, having to play next season in the Pacific Coast League.

When Ascoli recently was relegated to the second division, its fans unfurled a banner at the stadium that warned the players: “You are rich, you are stupid, you have no pride. Our wrath will be terrible.”

The players know better than to ignore the threat. Ascoli’s former coach, Giancarlo de Sisti, once received a letter bomb at home.

In Avellino, which also was relegated, fans placed crosses on the field inscribed with the names of each of the 16 players. On each of the crosses was the letter “M” for morte , which means death.