L'Osservatorio Nazionale sulle Manifestazioni Sportive

Football: safety and security experts from Europe gathered in Rome

This morning, at the Viminale, the European Think Tank of 23 Football Safety and Security Experts coming from 14 European countries has successfully ended.

The meeting, opened yesterday by the Director of the Public Order Office at the Department of Public Security Mr. Armando Forgione, is scheduled in a series of projects promoted by the EU, aiming at pinpointing and adopting shared strategies in order to prevent and fight violence in any sports events and particularly in football.

Among the topics, a work plan to be applied by each State during 2011.
The document key points were the implementation of the police international cooperation and the cooperation between the police and football events’ organisers, from the FIFA and UEFA to the single clubs.

In this framework, the exigency was confirmed to set up a joint training programme for all the European Police, already financed by the European Commission, which will start in the second half of this year in several European countries, Italy included.

The cooperation mechanisms with non-EU Countries were dealt with as well, also by employing already-working communication networks, such as Interpol and Europol.

All the initiatives included in the documents which are the basis for a European legislation, are laying the foundations for new cooperation frontiers aiming at a policing European integration.