Question (in Italian)
You have reacted very quickly and very energetically to the tragedy of Brussels. Could you explain to us your reaction?
Prime Minister
I was watching on television. I was appalled at what I saw and so was everyone in Britain. We could scarcely believe that these terrible things were happening. We saw the agony of the victims. I could understand exactly what their families must be feeling. We were outraged in Britain. So I felt it was not quite enough just to send a message of sympathy to Signor Craxi. I felt we had to do a little bit more to show the depth of our distress and therefore, had something like that happened here we would have opened a Disaster Fund and I felt that everyone in Britain would like the Government to make a contribution on their behalf, as an initial contribution, as a way of saying not only do we say we feel strongly about it, but we do—we were outraged!
Question (in Italian)
There is no doubt that this Fund is a constructive initiative, but it is generally admitted that English football fans have, as “The Times” wrote this morning, 23 years' record of [end p1] violence and punishments. It is also known that your Government is taking very serious steps to fight hooliganism. What are those steps?
Prime Minister
There is no trouble with most clubs or with most club games. There is very bad trouble at a few particular clubs and it would seem with a few particular fans.
We are going to introduce in England similar laws to those which they have introduced successfully in Scotland. No drink to be brought into the ground. No people to be admitted to the ground if they are in a drunken condition. No drink to be served on buses or trains going to the grounds, and possibly some of the off-licences, public houses in the vicinity closed. So we are trying to deal with it from the viewpoint of no alcohol at all.
That is not enough! The real thing is to catch the few thugs—and they are small in number compared with the crowds that go to football who are responsible. That means setting up television cameras in many many grounds—not television for transmission, but to see, to survey the crowd and see which are the culprits. It means cooperation from the supporters' clubs. They know who are the trouble-makers; they know who are strangers at a match, who are trouble-makers but who do not belong to the club. People must get involved; they must be prepared to give evidence; otherwise we are not going to get rid of this. [end p2]
And then, we have designated certain particular clubs for certain safety measures, and there is one other thing: I think, you know, that for away games, we are going to have to go to all-ticket matches—all ticket—so that they are issued through the supporters clubs or through special season tickets. If we are going to have this kind of football, which cannot be carried on with the big games except with a lot of police, we have got to take very drastic action, because that is not the football we have known.
Question (Italian)
Last question, Prime Minister. What can be done in your opinion at European level to make football a non-violent sport?
Prime Minister
You know, we have agreed with the European Football Association, certain very strict rules, because this violence is not peculiar to Britain—it occurs in other countries as well. And we have tried to set up a series of rules which must be followed in every major match in Europe.
Now, there is an inquiry to see whether those rules were observed as scrupulously as they should have been.
Apart from that, again, I think one is going to have to have all-ticket matches and no standing on terraces. I am afraid there are some people who go to football who behave in a way which is appalling to the rest of us and if that means [end p3] stopping the casual people from going, if it means having no tickets on sale outside grounds—and that is why I think a lot of the trouble comes—then so be it! But we have got to make football safe again for those who genuinely want to go and watch and they are the overwhelming majority, to be with their families. And we shall also plan to have family enclosures so that they can go and watch in safety.
Interviewer
Thank you, Mrs. Thatcher.
Prime Minister
Thank you, and my greatest sympathies and condolences to the Italian people who have been bereaved and whose relatives and friends have suffered grievously from this tragic match.