Foul Play
They call them the world's most dangerous fans, the football fanatics of Argentina who take their sport so seriously that watching a game of soccer can be a life or death event. Over the past 18 months, 14 people have been killed in football-related violence there. But the gangs that seemingly control the clubs are far more than soccer hooligans. The Barras Bravas, as they are called, are now accused of running criminal syndicates throughout the country. Nick Lazaredes reports.
REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes
There is still two hours go before the kick-off between Argentina's fiercest football rivals - River Plate and the home team Quilmes. Inside the Quilmes stadium supporters are already whipping themselves into a frenzy. In Argentina football is akin to religion and these fanatic devotees have become an integral part of the spectacle.
Each club has its own group of supporters - known as the Barra Bravas. Collectively, they form the most powerful football cult in the world. But with virtual armies of loyal foot-soldiers at their disposal, they have developed an unhealthy appetite for organised crime. Throughout the world football hooliganism has mostly been kept in check - but in Argentina its spread has been relentless.
FOOTBALL FAN (Translation): Why don't the jerks throwing rocks come onto the pitch? They have no balls!
With legions of hardcore fans under their control - Argentina's Football gangs - the Barra Bravas - have become a constant and menacing presence that now threatens to debase the sport they profess to love.
GUSTAVO GRABIA, JOURNALIST (Translation): The Barras Bravas emerged here at the end of the 60s in order to support certain sporting bosses who wanted to bring politics into the clubs.
For almost a decade investigative journalist Gustavo Grabia has tracked the rapid expansion of the Barra Bravas from the stadium terraces deep into the murky business of Argentine politics and government corruption.
GUSTAVO GRABIA (Translation): Those gangs who ruin the games, who cause violence on the pitch and end up killing supporters or bystanders, are the same people who later on use this type of violence in unions and political parties and become pawns. So how can we eradicate them in one area if we need them in the other?
Grabia says many gang members, flushed with success and powerful friends, regard themselves as above the law.
GUSTAVO GRABIA (Translation): If I throw a coin at a referee on a football field, I assure you in ten days I'll land in jail. But if a Barra Brava fires a gun at a game, he doesn't. Why not? Because of a network of cover-ups.
Grabia say the Barra Bravas have carved a niche performing the dirty work of corrupt politicians, trade unionists and government officials.
GUSTAVO GRABIA (Translation): The point is the football business expanded and this had ramifications for football bosses and their influence on Argentine politics. The Barras Bravas then started to work for the politicians. This led to an increasingly intertwined relationship between football's Barra Bravas and the political parties, unions and sporting leaders, until it was all one big thing.
Gustavo Grabia says Barra Brava gangs, protected by their high level contacts, have quickly moved to consolidate their core criminal enterprise - milking the profits from Argentina's lucrative football clubs.
GUSTAVO GRABIA (Translation): This work includes a percentage of the players' licenses, scalping, guaranteed parking in and around the clubs. Food and drink stands, snack sellers at the stadiums, must pay the Barras Bravas a fee, some sort of bribe, so they can work without being robbed.
MAN (Translation): We're the animals, right?
BARRA MEMBER (Translation): Yeah, the monkeys who live in the jungle, who have to survive getting mugged and killed.
Barra Brava members rarely talk to the media, but here in Quilmes, just south of the capital, a senior member of the local Barra gang has agreed to talk to me.
BARRA MEMBER (Translation): It wasn't the same in the 70s. The Barras behaved differently. There was a code. You give me your word. If I have your word, I know you won't put me in jail. If we get into trouble, I know you won't have me arrested. Understand? That's a code. And now? Nowadays you get sold. They sell you, and send you to jail to save their skin. And that's how it is... But those are the rules of the game.
Quilmes is home to Argentina's first football club but nowadays with a stagnant economy and rising crime it has become a tough place to live. I'm taken to the local clubhouse where members of theQuilmes Barra Bravas gather to discuss football and business.
BARRA MEMBER (Translation): If you're a Quilmes supporter, you love the club like your own child, you adore it. If you're a Barra member... It's forever. These kids will come here for life. It's a real feat. It's a triumph, an achievement.
With the Barra Bravas wielding effective control over many of Argentina's biggest football clubs - some of sports most ordinary fans have begun a most extraordinary initiative. Monica Nizzardo is on a mission. As the co-founder and President of 'Save Football', she's been secretly filming football matches to document the Barra Brava violence. She plans to use the videos in court to shut gangs down, but it's a dangerous task.
REPORTER (Translation): Can we go in with you?
MONICA NIZZARDO, PRESIDENT OF ‘SAVE FOOTBALL’ (Translation): No, you can't. You can't go in with cameras that are so visible. Mine is only small. I carry it in my bag. I do this a lot and it's very dangerous.
In the past 18 months, 14 people have been killed as a result of the violence, but because of either corruption or lack of evidence there's been few arrests - a trend that Monica Nizzardo hopes to turn around. The videos she has compiled paint a damning picture.
MONICA NIZZARDO (Translation): This is the game one of the many Nules games which I filmed. I was able to zoom in on the upper terrace and make out who the Barra members were. Besides, to become a witness in the legal system, you need evidence, so I'd have to take my video along.
In a bid to identify the Barra Bravas ringleaders Monica puts herself in the thick of the action, secretly filming and on this occasion narrowly avoiding detection.
MONICA NIZZARDO (Translation): It's risky and I was often afraid because they eventually found out I was up there. They even came up to the upper terrace to find me.
Already Monica and her group have put together a remarkable compilation of recent football violence. An upsurge that Monica says began in 2007 during a play-off between bitter rivalsChicago and Tigre.
MONICA NIZZARDO (Translation): There you can see people grabbing metal bars. That's the other Barra going in. It's completely out of control. It's an open battle on the pitch. The Tigre Barras managed to get inside. There, they start to hurl the Tigre supporters' posters. Now the Chicago supporters run to hit the Tigre fans. Then they start throwing things, all sorts of things.
Left stranded on the pitch, Chicago's frightened goalkeeper is assaulted by Barra Bravas from his own team.
MONICA NIZZARDO (Translation): That's Montoya, the Chicago goalkeeper. Look how they grab him. There they're taking his clothes off. It's very violent, very violent. It's incredible. I mean, the players are working. They're just doing their job. They can't put up with this. What are the police doing?
As the rampage of violence quickly spread outside of the stadium it soon turned deadly.
MAN (Translation): There were 17 police cars, 17. We're waiting for an ambulance. It's been 20 minutes. He's dying.
As TV cameras capture images of the violence, they also recorded the last moments of a young man's life.
MONICA NIZZARDO (Translation): There you see Marcelo Cejas, who has just been hit on the head with a great big rock. That's what knocked him down. Later, the people from same, the medical emergency service, said they couldn't get there because the Chicago fans didn't let the ambulance through. It was shocking.
The images of Marcello Cejas dying moments provoked widespread community outrage, but four years on his family are still seeking justice.
HORATIO CEJAS (Translation): To this day we're asking, why, who and how?
Angered that his brother's death remains unsolved, Horatio Cejas suspects a cover-up.
HORATIO CEJAS (Translation): But there were no witnesses at the time. It's crazy, really unfair, because there were millions of people at that game. And I don't know it could be police repression or that someone has too much power and doesn't want to bring this to light.
With little effort being made to identify his brother's killer, Horatio Cejas is determined to bring some meaning to Marcello's violent death. Marcello was well regarded for his work with disadvantaged children in one of Buenos Aires poorest communities and here, outside the house where he lived a street carnival is held to honour his memory. Continuing the community work started by Marcello brings some comfort to his family, but his brother Horatio holds little hope that justice will ever be served.
HORATIO CEJAS (Translation): If the law had wanted to, they'd have investigated the case. It's been four years since it all took place and the law has never wanted to do anything about it. No, unfortunately Argentina today is unjust for many people.
Now at every major stadium in Argentina CCTV cameras constantly scan the crowds, watched by police.
SECURITY MEN (Translation): Listen, some have gathered to break through the fence. OK, take your time. Take your time. Check out the guy who ran over to the side.
The cameras may help the police to spot the Barra Bravas troublemakers but isolating them from the mob is almost impossible.
SECURITY MEN (Translation): We've sent out several people so we can find them. We need a front-on camera. Yes. Try the one above. No, I tried both cameras. Neither of them worked. The middle of the fence, that's where they are.
Inside the stadium the police believe they are gaining ground but outside the Barra Brava's crime networks remains intact and with little being done to break the nexus between the Barra Bravas and the corrupt power-brokers that protect them it's unlikely that the reign of this powerful football mafia will be brought to an end.
GUSTAVO GRABIA (Translation): I'm very pessimistic when it comes to a solution to football violence in the short or medium term. Why? Because the Barras Bravas are part of the system. The only way to put an end to all this is to blow up the system and start from scratch. There's no other way. But those involved in the system don't want to be blown apart.
MARK DAVIS: This week I saw that Turkey announced they are banning men from attending football games. Women and kids only. The men can watch it on TV. Maybe it would work inArgentina, too.
Reporter/Camera
NICK LAZAREDES
Producer
ASHLEY SMITH
Fixer
NICK OLLE
Editors
MICAH MCGOWN
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Subtitling/Translations
HENAR PERALES
PILAR BALLETEROS
Original Music composed by Vicki Hansen