INTRO | HIGHLIGHTS | FEATURES | INTERVIEWS | PERSPECTIVES
39
SECURITISING
SPORT MEGA
EVENTS
Brett Cherry introduces research
findings on Sport Mega Events
from two former IHRR researchers,
Dr Francisco Klauser and Dr
Richard Giulianotti, revealing
that these are far more complex
and dynamic than is normally
realised. Their work shows the
variety of public, government, and
commercial interests involved in
securing these kinds of events from
potential risks such as terrorist
attacks or riots. It also highlights
the sophisticated level of security
both in terms of policing and
surveillance. This research was
part of the Risk and Security
programme based at IHRR.
WHEN IT COMES TO GOVERNING
security risks in urban environments,
Sport Mega Events are at the top of the
list. They are some of the largest kinds of
public events in the world that demand
new forms of security never before seen.
The large numbers of people they draw
in are often far beyond what many cities
deal with on a regular basis. Massive
sport events such as the FIFA World Cup,
Super Bowl, and the Olympic Games
create new spaces that are both highly
controlled and surveyed by government
and private authorities. Policing them is
no longer confined to physical force, but
includes high-tech forms of surveillance
and new techniques for ‘crowd control’.
Security at Sport Mega Events radically
transforms urban areas not only to
accommodate the event itself, but
to prevent or mitigate potential risks
that may disrupt it, from terrorism
to hooliganism. These events also
involve complex social as well as built
infrastructures, involving issues of class,
state power, and neo-liberal privatisation
that transform sport into a monumental
commercial enterprise. These social,
political, and technological forces all
interact together in a number of complex
ways in the course of such events.
Sport Mega Events are extremely costly,
but also highly profitable. The budget
for the 2012 London Olympics was
£9.3 billion that includes an extra
£271 million to boost security. The
introduction of thousands of security
personnel and implementation of the
latest surveillance technology transforms
parts of the city into enclaves specifically
designed to prevent and mitigate security
risks. In a way this sanitises the urban
landscape in an attempt to seal off risk
entirely and channel spectators through
different parts of the city from transport
interchanges to event arenas. Security
in this sense is about controlling daily
life, but in a way that allows the event
to continue unimpeded. Also, the host
cities tend to be large tourist destinations
and having Sport Mega Events encourages
economic development to promote
their ‘tourist image’. However, in
some cases managing security check
points and implementing the most
advanced surveillance technologies is
not sufficient. The crowd itself must
be managed in such a way that it does
not cause interference with the event.
The use of ‘fan zones’ in the 2006
FIFA World Cup in Germany is a prime
example of this. A fan zone or ‘fanmeile’
is the separation, fencing, and surveillance
of extended parts of city centres:
The tightly enclosed fan zones
addressed not only the need
to regulate public life during
the event, but also served
temporarily to reconfigure
urban space in the interest of
visibility and branding for
FIFA’s commercial partners.
(KLAUSER, F. 2011)
These fan zones are not only in place
to make people safer or more secure,
but also exist as an extension of
commercialism that underlies the event.
Those who participate are also promoting
the activities of private commercial
interests though they may not be aware
of doing so. The commercial influence
of Sport Mega Events is obvious in
many ways. All small and major sporting
events tend to have corporate sponsors,
not to mention the teams themselves.
How participants are ordered by security
is influenced by mass commercialism.
Contemporary security governance
combines risk with commercial branding.
Sport Mega Events are laboratories
for testing innovations in security
technology, whether it is CCTV
surveillance systems with face
recognition or methods of crowd
control. Expertise is relied upon to
develop model solutions that can lead
to projected outcomes, but there are
problems with challenging predefined
security models. Exemplars drive
Sport Mega Event security and are
perhaps overly relied upon, potentially
leading to other risks that may or may
not be well defined by the policies
implemented. In the case of the 2012
Olympic Games in London, the model
of permanent security infrastructure,
such as surveillance technologies, will
be transferred to other future host cities
of the Olympics, Rio de Janeiro for
example, that is developing a similar
plan for the 2016 Olympic Games.
One issue with ‘best practice’ solutions
for security is that measures adopted for
one urban centre may not necessarily be
applicable to others. Unfortunately, there
appears little room for democracy at FIFA
or other Sport Mega Events to bring to
light these concerns:
Local authorities and stakeholders,
having to implement and finance best
practice solutions, are increasingly
‘caught’ within /// CONTINUED...
Above: Wembley Stadium.
Below: Olympic Stadium.