In ancient societies, athletics and especially competitive contact games have always been harsh, but aggression in the past was tempered by the insistence that playing hard, playing to win, did not allow playing to cheat and hurt. One of the first nations to express athletic ideals were the Greeks. As Pindar enunciated, the athletic ideal embodied courage and stamina with modesty, dignity, and fairness, those elusive qualities the Greeks called Aidos. As sports became more specialized, the general population became increasingly withdrawn from the public. The history of the sport reveals that although Greek sports had been increasingly marred by corruption and bribery, they flourished in an era that saw the rapid expansion of stadiums and arenas under the Roman Empire. During the Roman Empire, violence in sports became the generally accepted principle and spectators not only endorsed it, but also adopted it as a social norm.
In recent years, sports violence has come to be perceived as a social problem. Commissions have been appointed in Canada and England to investigate violence between hockey players and soccer fans. Today, there are numerous examples of violence in professional sports, as countries such as the United States, Canada, Greece, Italy, and Germany report hearing court cases involving victims of perpetrators of violence. Newspapers, magazines, and television shows show bloodied athletes and rioting fans at hockey, boxing, soccer, football, baseball, and basketball games with what seems like increasing regularity. But are incidents of sports violence really increasing, and if so, what is the reason for such a negative increase? Or does the increased public attention and media focus on sports violence not reflect an increase in the incidence or severity of assault, but rather a greater public concern with moral issues and political discourse?
Contrary to popular belief, there seems to be a growing dissatisfaction with sports violence. Changes in sports rules, developments in team design, and even the physical features of modern sports arenas all evolved in an effort to reduce violence or its consequences. But still, among athletic management teams, government officials, fans, and the athletes themselves, there is an ambivalent attitude toward sports violence. The ambivalence takes the form of justifying the existence of violence in sport, but without taking personal responsibility for it. Coaches and directors tend to blame the fans, saying that violence is what draws people to stadiums, as the risk involved makes the game more “interesting”. Athletes often admit that they oppose violence, but coaches expect them. Fans justify it by attributing aggressiveness to athletes and situational aspects of the game. Spectators see violence as an inherent part of some sports, since one cannot play games like hockey or soccer without accepting the necessity for violent action.
However, public opinion tends to focus more and more on sports violence, as great advances in the technologies used have increased media coverage, making information available to a wide global audience. Therefore, contemporary critics tend to view sports violence as a worldwide phenomenon with a very worrying future course and social outcomes.
