On November 30, 2014, Álvaro CG sent a message to his girlfriend at 9:26 in the morning: “We blew him up, I was left without a baton, I beat one of them.” Álvaro, known among his colleagues as Kit-Kat, was 17 years old at the time and was part of “the puppies” ultras of the Atlético Front, the colchonera group under which more than a hundred violent radicals of neo-Nazi ideology hide. That cold November morning, several of them had beaten and thrown into the Manzanares River jimmyFrancisco Javier Romero Taboada (41 years old), an ultra (left-wing) from the Riazor Blues, the supporter of the visiting team, Deportivo de La Coruña, who came to Madrid that day to play a match at the Vicente Calderón. Jimmy died hours later, burst inside. Kit-Kat was sentenced—thanks to the testimony of a protected witness who participated in the brawl—to six years of closed confinement and two years of supervised release for the crimes of homicide, rioting, and illicit possession of weapons. But on July 23, 2016, the Provincial Court of Madrid acquitted him of the homicide due to lack of credibility of the so-called “protected witness G-303.” Last Sunday, Kit-Kat was one of the ultras that led the incidents that almost led to the suspension of the derby at the Civitas Metropolitano, due to insults and throwing objects at Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.
In the videos and photographs of the commotion in the south end, he is seen standing on a fence, shaved, wearing a tight black T-shirt, towering over all the heads of that so-called entertainment stand, microphone in hand, with a piece of paper. predominant in the revolt, along with his fighting partner, David. L. Briones, known within the group only as Briones. Both are old acquaintances of the National Police agents of the Madrid Provincial Information Brigade (BPI), due to their involvement in numerous brawls. “Briones is somewhat younger and more elusive, until now he tried to stay in the background to avoid encounters with the police that could affect his ‘business’, his career in the Atlético Front began after the pandemic, in 2020, assuming the leadership of the group together with Álvaro Kit-Kat”, explain the researchers. “Among other things, he was punished for kicking a security guard in the head,” they add.
“Those convicted of violent crimes cannot be members,” sources from the red-and-white club firmly assure. “No one who is not a member can access the entertainment stands,” they add. But there they were.
The two, Kit-Kat (27 years old) and Briones (24 years old), have stopped being puppies and have taken over as Barri,Juan María López Sánchez, a historical figure from the 80s, from the time of Bastión, when the murder of Real Sociedad fan Aitor Zabaleta, in December 1998. Kit-Kat and Briones already make up the tandem that leads the radicals of the Front Atlético, according to police sources, who are reviewing these days frame by framethe altercation that forced last Sunday’s match to be stopped for almost 20 minutes and that has once again highlighted the ambiguity that the clubs maintain with their most radical and violent fans.
At the moment, neither the president of the club, Enrique Cerezo, nor its main owner, Miguel Ángel Gil Marín (son of Jesús Gil), have opened their mouths about it, despite the fact that the club has been sanctioned by the Competition Committee of the Spanish Football Federation with the closure of the stadium fund where the incidents occurred for the next three matches and with a fine of 45,000 euros. On Friday afternoon, in a statement, the club announced that two other ultras had been identified who “are going to be permanently expelled.”
Applying the zoom In the images captured by the cameras and recorded in the room of the Organizational Control Unit (UCO) of the stadium last Sunday, the faces of other old acquaintances appear for the police Information agents. Your job now is to distinguish them among the 4,000 people who fill that stands and then compare the list of DNIs registered by the club. “The entertainment stands can only be accessed with a season ticket and by showing your ID, the season ticket is non-transferable in that area of the field,” they explain at the club.
Investigators believe they see, among the ultras, “those who insulted and confronted Mario Hermoso (“Madridista son of a bitch!”) in August 2022, “those who confronted two of the private security guards.” ” from the club, or “the one who insulted Nico [Williams]” on April 27 in a match against Athletic Club. In this last case, the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office understood that the screams uttered against the soccer player (“uh, uh, uh”, imitating the sound of a monkey) could constitute “a crime of injury to dignity”, and in May opened investigation proceedings to find out the identity of the person or persons who uttered these insults. The author was located, also by the cameras, and proposed for punishment by the Police.
“The club sanctions all members that the authorities identify as involved in infractions, who have open files, convicted of a crime, in addition to sanctioning those who the club’s security detects committing an infraction or offense included in our internal regulations and The sanctioning regime that we have is applied to him,” say red and white sources. But there they were.
For the insults to Nico, Atlético was also sanctioned with the partial closure of the Metropolitano for two games, but did not comply with the sanction because the Appeal Committee exonerated the club for “lack of responsibility.”
How far does this “lack of responsibility” of the clubs go? To what extent are they responsible for these types of acts and attitudes, if they allow the entry of that type of people into their stadiums? What relationship do the teams establish with those hooligansand why?
Law 19/2007 “against violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sport” makes it clear in its article 3 (“measures to avoid violent acts”)that, in general, it is the club’s responsibility to avoid this type of situation by controlling the violent, their individual evolution and as a group. And in its article 7 (“conditions of permanence in the venue”) it details the unacceptable behaviors (insults, throwing objects, breaking into the playing field…) that lead to “immediate expulsion.” But, in addition, article 9 (“record book of follower activities”)The same rule states: “Clubs must have a record book that contains generic and identifying information on the activity of the clubs, associations, groups or groups of fans, who provide their membership or support to the entity in question.”
“They only register the president and the secretary of the club,” say police sources, referring to the way in which the clubs prepare this registry of followers. “The ultras always camouflage themselves in the crowd,” they warn.
José Luis Tucho, the National Police inspector responsible for coordinating Security at Atlético de Madrid, commented at the end of the match that it had been “a complicated match” and that one of the ultras who was carrying a weapon had been expelled. (white). “At the entrance to the entertainment stands, an individual search is carried out on each of the attendees,” they say at the red-and-white club. But there was the knife.
The inspector, with a mattress heart, knows perfectly well who these ultras are and prohibits the players from approaching the radicals in the vicinity of the stadiums. Once, in a match in Italy, Briones wanted defender César Azpilicueta to sign a shirt and Tucho prevented him. The ultra insulted him and then showed the shirt signed by the player on his social networks with a message: “Tucho, fuck you!” The challenge is constant, “because, in reality, football is nothing more than the excuse to give free rein to their addiction to violence,” the researchers warn.
Not only the Front
Those of the Atlético Front have earned the reputation of being “the most kaffir” in a panorama in which, according to experts, “the ultra movement is gaining more and more strength in Europe.” In Spain, the police move with estimates of “about 10,000 people” in total, “in groups of 200-250 in which they are always the same.” “They use football to make themselves visible and send their message,” they explain. The average is between 80 and 90 incidents with ultras per year in football in Spain and about 1,600 sanction proposals, according to data from the National Sports Office of the National Police.
At the opposite pole to the Atlético Front are, for example, the far-left ultras of Osasuna, calling themselves Indar Gorri (“Red Force”, in Basque), who occupy the southern end of their stadium, the Sadar. There is Eder Miji Avendaño, with another long history of brawls and arrests, acting as a speaker in the cheering stands of his team.
Last January, the bukaneros (the ultras of Rayo, from the extreme left) were involved in a pitched battle in the vicinity of their stadium minutes before a match with Real Sociedad Deportiva Alcalá when they ran into ultras (from the extreme right) of that team, known as the Alkaline Brigades. It was a Third Division match.
And the Biris Norte, radicals from the ultra-left Seville, faced off in a wild fight with the Indar Gorri a year ago in Pamplona, despite sharing an ideology. Months later the players of the Andalusian team met with the ultras as a privilege.
Clubs have many ways to prosecute violent people and at the same time maintain the festive atmosphere and liveliness. They can take away their place in the stadium, as Real Madrid and Barça did; They can control the entertainment stands by establishing certain conditions (types of chants, insignia and flags, age of the subscribers…) in exchange for benefits for these fans, they can appear in court to monitor those prosecuted for violent crimes… In In this last aspect, many hide behind the League: “Our legal department feels protected by the League, which represents us,” they argue.
Certainly, the League began a few years ago to opt for ordinary justice to eradicate violence in sport. “The clubs have been joining to a greater or lesser extent,” point out sources from the employers’ association, which does not have any sanctioning powers (although it has requested it). “There are many measures now on the table to put an end to this,” say the same sources, “but they have to be approved by the clubs in the delegate commission and in the assembly and, for the moment, nothing is closed,” they warn. .
Next month it will be 10 years since Jimmy’s death, which marked a turning point in the treatment and regulations against violence in sports, but the truth is that this brutal televised crime still has no culprits, and those allegedly involved They continue to roam freely through the stadiums and lead radical hobbies that ruin sporting competition.