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Across Europe, along with the grief and shock, came the recriminations. In an editorial, the Times of London declared: "It is hard to resist the conclusion that the game of soccer is as good as dead." Some laid the blame for the Brussels tragedy squarely on the estimated 16,000 Liverpool followers at the match. Many had spent the afternoon before the game drinking in the streets and bars of Brussels. The Belgian government acted swiftly by banning all British teams -- from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland -- from competing in Belgium "until further notice." England's Football Association then announced that it was withdrawing all English soccer teams from European competition for the season starting in September. "It is absolutely unbearable to continue to admit the English hordes on soccer grounds," said Jean-Michel Fournet-Fayard, president of the French Football Federation.
While not underplaying the responsibility of the British fans for the tragedy, commentators and sports officials charged that Belgian police had been lax in preparing for the possibility of violence, especially considering the reputation of British club followers. (Last year, for example, an English fan was killed by an irate bar owner and 141 were arrested in disturbances connected with a match in Brussels.) The police were also criticized for not segregating the fans of the opposing teams more effectively and for not searching more thoroughly for weapons as the crowd entered Heysel Stadium. Others claimed that there had been too few police on hand, even though 1,000 would seem to be adequate by the standards of most sports events. To many watching the rampage on television, the police in the stadium appeared somewhat lame and ineffectual. Said one Liverpool fan: "The police were just too scared."
Soccer, the world's most popular sport, for decades has unleashed ferocious scenes. In 1945 George Orwell, deploring the bloodlust of soccer crowds, wrote that "serious sport" is "war minus the shooting." In Lima in 1964, some 300 spectators were killed in riots sparked by a disputed referee's call. In China, where civil disorder is rare, hundreds of fans rioted in the streets of Peking last month after the home team was knocked out of the World Cup by Hong Kong. Even as crowds were headed for the stadium in Brussels, families in Mexico City were mourning the victims of a stadium riot last week in which eight people, two of them children, were crushed to death.
The penchant of English fans for rock-hurling mayhem has become an increasing problem at home, and one of the country's sorriest exports. In the past three months alone, England has witnessed three major soccer riots that have left one dead and scores injured. At matches abroad, rampaging fans have become ambassadors of bad will, bashing heads in France, trading tear-gas volleys with police in Italy and urinating on spectators in Spain. In 1975 Leeds United, a team whose followers have one of the worst reputations, was barred from playing on the Continent for four years after Leeds fans raised a storm of violence at the European Cup Final in Paris. In 1977 Manchester United was briefly kicked out of the European Cup Winners competition after its fans rioted during a first-round match in St. Etienne, France.