Football I.D cards in the United Kingdom were proposed in the mid 1980's by the then right wing government of Margaret Thatcher and muted at various points throughout the mid 1990's. Even during the reign of John Major the idea of football identity cards raised its head at various times when incidents occurred where English football fans were involved. After England fans rioted and caused a game against Ireland to be abandoned at Lansdowne Road in Dublin 1995, the idea was muted again as a serious resolution to the issue of hooliganism.    Largely the calls were sponsored by back bench hench mod members of parliament otherwise known as the  '1922 committee'.    Consisting of a disparate group of right wing dinosaurs of old school conservative leanings and views, the calls then fell away with the conservative government of the time falling away in popularity.    From the mid 1980's to the mid 1990's identity cards for football fans were mentioned as a serious solution to football violence around three or four times but aside from one club (Luton Town) they never become wide spread and the idea has instead branched into the wider remit of the micro-chip UK national identity card scheme.

What football in the United Kingdom has done is moved into administrating its own version of fan identity ownership through fan membership schemes at both national and club level.   At clubs the advent of the dominance of the season ticket and in many cases the waiting list has given clubs at Premiership level the scope to control and select its fan base. At national level travel clubs such as England Fans and the Scotland Supporters Club have allowed national associations to create highly bureaucratic membership schemes where membership fees are paid bi-annually just to allow fans the right to apply for tickets.   Essentially season ticket schemes and membership clubs at international level do offer supporters a sense of official belonging and security but they are also highly club and association led rather than fan led.   As easily as fans are excepted to renew season ticket schemes and  be members of membership clubs it's also just as easy for fans to be thrown out of the scheme due to a catalogue of 'misdemeanour's.'      As a season ticket holder you regard yourself as a fan but to the club you are now one of its 'clients' who is subject to all its marketing efforts and messages but also tied into its rules, regulations and authority.

With the advent of these schemes has come a variety of in-house police backed tie-ins that fans have to adhere to as a rule of membership. These go from Corporate scripted 'Fan Code of Conduct' to rules surrounding identity, ticket purchasing and the possible sell-on of tickets. This, together with the increase in club security officers and operations stadium managers has seen fans being threatened via a number of formats.   Season ticket holders and club members are easy targets for stadium operations managers who have an agenda to clean up and make stadium arenas 'safe-houses' and family entertainment venues.    The growth of the involvement of Chief Police officers in football policing and stewarding and the means by which they can pressurise clubs into handing out heavy handed penalties for the simplest of misdemeanour's works in tandem to season ticketing and membership schemes.     In short if they don't have your identity then they are at a loss to control you regularly and directly.

There is a sense of time-lag in Italy compared to more Northern European countries such as Holland and the UK.    The Netherlands has long had its own club identity card scheme at Eredivisie level. Due to wide ranging episodes of football violence in Holland action was taken and the I.d card scheme was just one of a number of efforts at halting the problem. As we have seen I.D cards for football fans in England never materialised instead they were indirectly washed away by the emergence of the Premiership, New Labour and all seater stadia.     Italy has long had a unique sense of fan culture that has served to express itself via violence, aggression and fanatical support. As a country that lived through, was a victim of and experienced the Heysel disaster it has stumbled along both as world champion on the field and world champion of fan troubles off it.

In the more modern era the death of police inspector Filippo Raciti in February 2007 after a Catania against Palermo Sicilian derby match saw Italy decide to stand up, condemn the death of the officer and change the way it manages its stadia.  With the growth of Italian clubs as both 'media empires' with large corporate partners as well as 'football clubs' with a global brand so clubs decided it was time to protect interests and make changes. From the Italian interior a series of legal measures intended to prevent and punish violence more effectively were introduced in tandem to this cultural shift.   Inside and outside the stadia changes in stadium organization and management has arisen with increased high viability stewarding and management tactics.

Now though Italy has decided to take things one step further and join the Dutch in introducing its own football fan ID card scheme. The 'tessera del tifoso' is the idea of the department of the Ministry of the Interior which is responsible for security & public order at sports events. This body hopes to introduce the scheme in Serie A & B but also, potentially, in the lower league Lega Pro (Serie C1 and C2). The main idea of the scheme is just as you would expect in that in order to buy match tickets you will need to present your 'tessera del tifoso' issued by your club which like a credit card contains an electronic ID chip which contains all your personal details such as name, date purchased, address and so on.

Another aim of course is to ensure fans who have 'football offences' are banned from obtaining a season ticket, match ticket and access to the ground.   In princilpe that may seem fair but with supporters being banned for even the most menial of issues it can mean a lifelong fan being banned from seeing his club through the sheer beaucratic force of the scheme.  In the UK many Man Utd fans have been threatened with season ticket removal by the club for flag use on the Stretford End.   

Clubs themselves see the system as one that should simplify the process of buying tickets and of entering the stadium through the creation of dedicated electronic turnstiles. It all seems so simple in theory but in practice will be massively problematic to enforce.      In addition it also serves as a threat to the resident and long established Italian fan culture inside stadiums especially if identity schemes have codes of conduct under terms of use that make reference to the use of flags, banners and chants (as is the case in the UK at the moment with season tickets).

As was identified in the United Kingdom when Fan Id cards were mentioned such a scheme cannot be rolled out without potential practical problems occurring. For the occasional fan it can mean an application for an identity card simply so that one game can be viewed ( a similar situation occurs at Manchester City's Stadium where all applicants for a ticket need a Man City club card to gain access, although notably these are not hard to gain but time consuming to process and costly yearly to produce).     

Clubs in Holland have tried to address the issue of fans from abroad wanting to watch games by offering special 'one match' packages. This package will include stadia tour, corporate seats and pre-match meal.   However, these are generally costly with a package for an Ajax game costing up to 100 euros. Moreover the opportunity to gain just a ticket and stand or mix amongst resident home supporters inside the ground goes due to the manner of the package purchased is hard to find. In Holland it is fairly simple to purchase tickets for lower league Earste Divisie games on match day via a ticket booth. In Italy though the scheme is to be rolled out at lower levels thereby meaning extra expense for clubs both in terms of electronic facilitation and through the need for the necessary stadia infrastructure which in many cases is non existent.

Another issue the the scheme perhaps does not address is of hooliganism occurring outside stadia or in a city on matchday. Aside from minor match day incidents not very many incidents of violence actually occur inside stadia.  There is from this the danger that instead of addressing the issue of violence the 'tessera del tifoso' scheme (like season tickets) will only serve to clamp down on menial and irrelevant fan 'behaviours' deemed to be unsuitable in the theatre of the modern game.   Namely in the case of Italy this will mean more club control over fans and thereafter as a result less choreographies; less banners deemed to be 'offensive' and more exploitative and unfair banning of black listed supporters. The scheme will have to justify itself somehow especially at the cost at which it will be introduced and because of the influence of the body (Ministry of Interior) who are backing it.

With Italy deciding through that cards are the cornerstone of its attack on violence in football, it raises serious questions about identity, civil rights and at a lesser level club exploitation.     The tessera del Tifoso scheme goes further though being a fans DNA link with his/her club, the government and its policing.    What you essentially have is a ‘biographical footprint’ that clubs can use in a variety of ways from banning you; preventing you getting tickets to sending you direct marketing e-mails about new club shirts. Club databases become identity, bullying, sales and marketing registers. To look at flaws in the scheme would take a book alone but from the original idea things can be exploited with photos becoming old and unreliable over period of time whilst lost or stolen cards can be used as means of perpetuating actual crimes elsewhere such.

Fans in Italy have unsurprisingly reacted in the expected way to the incoming and introduction of the scheme.    Ultras groups have already produced a number of displays and banners where feelings against the scheme have been expressed.    Mass protest and debates are also ongoing via meetings and forums.    Civil rights groups meanwhile have acknowledged that the problems of violence  do exist but pointed out that more moderate fans feel that rather than focus on such a government-backed ID card scheme, football's policy makers should be stepping in and encouraging the more milder variety of identification systems that already exist in the private marketplace today.   They go on to highlight that many of the private systems either through season tickets or club cards already provide better assurance of identity and trustworthiness at a club/fan level than many overly bureaucratic government-issued ID card schemes do. 

What happens if the current political regime and Interior ministry in Italy ( the i.d. card scheme is its brainchild) collapses or changes occur and an alternative body of politicians decide to scrap the idea as unworkable?  What you have then is a system where business has bid for the chance to make, issue and provide the cards yet the contract ends suddenly due to political change.   Money is then lost, contracts destroyed or paid up and its an all round waste of money and time. A similar scenario exists in the United Kingdom at the moment where the current government under Gordon Brown have less than a year left in power yet want to drive through a national I.D scheme that costs an estimated £5billion but which both potential new governments (under Liberal Democrats and Conservative) intend to scrap immediately after gaining power.

Whether through government schemes or season ticket and associated codes of conduct many people are troubled about the language in which such schemes are introduced.     The unique fan culture of Italian football and its colour, noise and identity is under threat by the very nature of this scheme.

With football loyalty schemes the fact that such a lifetime pursuit as an affinity with your football club becomes a mere 'leisure pursuit' like going to a supermarket makes the language of season ticket loyalty schemes hard to fathom for many football fans.      Such modern schemes follow the logic of customer loyalty cards or credit and debit cards, items which are themselves cornerstones of modern day problems both socially and economically.   On another level accepting i.d card schemes branches further into the realms of civil infringment and government beaucracy in tandem to corporate control.

Whether the 'tessera del tifoso' scheme becomes a hard fact and harsh reality of football watching in Italy is hard to clarify and ascertain.    If it does become rolled out across the league it leaves many asking the question if what is going on is a state backed control policy; an effort in crude commercialization or a means of wiping clean Italian Football culture and its supposed wrongdoings.   A mixture of all three would appear to be the aim.   If it is largely the latter it is time some of those at the centre of  the Italian game, including footballers, journalists and coaches,  spoke out and provided views before Serie A becomes 'Lega Calcio Premiershipa' with teams such as Inter Chelsea and Parma United.