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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

In Fútbol-Mad Argentina, Ms. Rubeo
Teaches Soccer Fans to Play Nice

Hooligan Etiquette Bans Rock Throwing,
Provoking Police; 'Big Baby' Learns a Lesson

By MATT MOFFETT

BUENOS AIRES -- For years, the roughneck fans of the Huracán soccer club often put on more of a show than the players did. Boasting in a fight song that they "root with wine and drugs," they battled police with rocks, fought rival fans with chains and vandalized everything from cars to bleachers.

Fabiana Rubeo

But at a recent Huracán game, the tough guys were kept in check by a woman sporting a Chanel handbag. Fabiana Rubeo, a 5-foot-3-inch lawyer, is crusading to teach sportsmanship to the barras bravas, gangs of soccer hooligans who have fueled a culture of violence in Argentina's national sport. She counseled the leader of the Huracán gang on avoiding provocations with stadium police and warned against launching bottle rockets from the stands.

"Despite what people say, this is basically innocent fun," said Ms. Rubeo, 40 years old, shouting to be heard above the roar of the fight songs.

Just about every Argentine soccer team has a barra brava composed of diehard fans who root for teams with nicknames like "The Scoundrels," "The Slum Dwellers," "The Lepers" and "The Garbage Men." They sit in special stadium sections, brandish huge banners and pound drums. Barra brava-related violence has claimed some 250 lives in the past 50 years, estimates Amilcar Romero, a journalist who has written extensively on the gangs.

The daughter of a retired senator, Ms. Rubeo in August pulled off a singular feat of diplomacy by convening a barra brava summit that attracted 160 leaders from 40 different hooligan groups -- most of whom had only ever met in street fights or police lineups. The who's who of hooligans agreed to the so called "Ten Commandments" of hooligan etiquette. They include returning balls kicked into the stands to officials, halting inflammatory displays of flags stolen from enemy clubs, and refraining from scuffling with other fans or the police.

Skepticism and Ridicule

But Ms. Rubeo's hooligan rehab group, called New Horizon for the World, is sparking skepticism, and some ridicule, in this fútbol-mad country. For one thing, naysayers point out that some major barras bravas -- including the River Plate Club's storied cheering section, known as "The Drunkards of the Stands" -- haven't signed on to the commandments. An article in the Buenos Aires newspaper Pagina/12 dismissed Ms. Rubeo as "naive." Five members of Congress called for an investigation of her project, deeming it "absurd."

Ten Commandments for Soccer Fans

2:32

Argentina, home to a feverish soccer culture that produced Diego Maradona and World Cup champions, is also home to a hooligan underbelly that permeates on gamedays. As WSJ's Matt Moffett reports, a controversial project is now looking to curb the violence. (Sept. 18)

Other critics say barras bravas can't be trusted to keep their word. Indeed, not long after the commandments were released to the press, 60 members of one of the ratifying groups, from Club Atlético Platense, trashed the headquarters of the soccer players' union. Ms. Rubeo says not all the details of the incident are clear, but adds that her group condemns violence.

England and Germany, as well as some other countries, also have an entrenched soccer hooligan culture. But in Argentina, unreliable law enforcement and the complicity of clubs makes the problem especially difficult to solve, Ms. Rubeo says.

Club officers count on barras bravas' support in internal elections and their help with dirty work, such as harassing unwanted coaches or players until they quit the team, says sports sociologist Sergio Levinsky. In return, barras bravas leaders get free tickets, jobs and cash, he says.

A spokesman for the Argentine Soccer Association, the sport's governing body, downplays the existence of links between the clubs and barras bravas, and says it's the police who need to do more to ensure that stadiums are secure.

A soccer fan since she was a girl, Ms. Rubeo started New Horizon with her husband and a handful of friends in 2006. The barras bravas inhabit a macho, secretive world, but some members say that Ms. Rubeo won them over with her street smarts and her toughness.

"She's very brave and dedicated," says a leader of the Huracán rooters, who only provided his nickname, El Bocón, or Big Mouth.

Ms. Rubeo says antiviolence initiatives that don't get the fans themselves on board are doomed to fail. Last year, soccer security officials, desperate to halt the bloodletting in the lower divisions, started banning barras bravas from attending games where their teams were visitors. Violence has ebbed in those contests, but hooligans are starting to adapt. The barra brava for the Los Andes club recently obtained bogus press passes to gain access to a visiting stadium, where it promptly started a big scrap.

Weeding Out Thieves

Ms. Rubeo's group tries to create incentives for sportsmanlike behavior. Last year, New Horizon awarded a prize of an all-expenses-paid trip to a tournament in Venezuela to 20 leaders of the barra brava of the Independiente club for its progress in weeding out thieves and drug pushers from its ranks.

Spending about $100,000 from private donors since its inception, New Horizon has paid for antiviolence TV spots featuring well-known players. It has organized seminars in playgrounds and prisons.

New Horizon also sponsored a recent test program at two games in which barra brava members themselves were paid to oversee security in the hooligan section. Given walkie-talkies, blue windbreakers and stipends of $50 a game, the rowdies showed they could prevent chaos as well as instigate it. At one point, the barra brava security men rescued a youth after he fell into a water-filled trench on the field's perimeter.

Getty Images

Part of the large contingent of Argentine fans present for a friendly match against the U.S.

Ms. Rubeo proudly points to her success stories, such as ex-barra brava leader, Pablo Alejandro Alvarez, better known as El Bebote, or "Big Baby." In 2006, ex-Buenos Aires Province Gov. Felipe Sola singled him out as the ringleader of a stadium rock-throwing fracas. Last year, a judge ordered Mr. Alvarez and several other hooligans detained for suspicion of involvement in killing a fan; Mr. Alvarez remained a fugitive from justice for several weeks, until the judge ruled there were insufficient grounds to make a case against him. Both Mr. Alvarez and his attorney declined to comment. But "Big Baby" has told the Argentine press that he's been reborn under Ms. Rubeo's tutelage. "I've learned that the fútbol fiesta could only exist in peace," he said recently.

Many Argentines remain dubious that the violence can ever be stopped. "Fundamentally, the barras bravas care about money and violence, not the game," says Cristian Ferlauto, a goalie. Mr. Ferlauto was cut by his team, Argentino de Quilmes, in April after he went public with complaints that hooligans threatened him after a loss. (Argentino's barra brava hasn't signed the commandments.) The club says Mr. Ferlauto was cut because of poor performance.

Ms. Rubeo says the answer is more outreach at the stadium -- though just getting to the stadiums can be an ordeal. The day of the recent Huracán game, barra brava members waited at a street corner, passing around bottles of beer before boarding some dented school buses they had chartered. En route to the game, the Huracán backers hung out the windows screaming out club songs and then tried, unsuccessfully, to lift the crossing barrier at a train track which was impeding their advance.

The buses finally met up with several police cars, motorcycles and paddy wagons, which provided an escort to the stadium to discourage ambushes by rival fans. "When you think about it," says Ms. Rubeo, who followed the convoy in her car, "it's an awful lot of trouble just to see a ballgame."

Write to Matt Moffett at matthew.moffett@wsj.com

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