The All-Seeing Eye of State Surveillance in the Italian Football (Soccer) Terraces: The Case Study of the Football Fan Card

Abstract

The football (soccer) stadium in Italy has been, since its origin, not only a ludic space but also a symbolic setting that has often reflected national socio-political issues such as the country’s north/south economic and political divide, the existence of organized crime, the promotion of radical political ideologies, and, concomitantly, racism and homophobia. In such a milieu, the spectacle of football can suddenly shift to symbolic and factual violence. One of the main tools of the complex Italian counter hooliganism model (CHM) is the Tessera del tifoso, a compulsory fan ID scheme adopted in 2009 to curb football spectator violence. This paper attempts to systematically evaluate this scheme for the first time, adopting as its conceptual frame Giorgio Agamben's concepts of the state of exception, bare life, the (concentration) camp, and dispositivo (apparatus). It is argued that the Tessera del tifoso serves as a most prominent example of a CHM based on a permanent state of exception manifested by an increase in State surveillance, control, and regulation of fans' lives with potential implications for their civil liberties and freedom.