International police co-operation around football matches

Abstract

For the European football championships (Euro 2000) held in Belgium and the Netherlands
in 2000, authorities embarked on a strategy that involved maximal use of international police
co-operation. To evaluate the effort, feedback from foreign police officers deployed during
Euro 2000 was explicitly sought. In each host city a team of observers carried out systematic
observations and an international monitoring team independently made their own
observations. In this paper Euro 2000 is used as a case study to investigate the nature of the
international police cooperation in practice and its contribution to the management of public
order.
Keywords: Euro-2000; International police cooperation; public order management; football
hooliganism