Editorial: To the very end

Each time football fan club violence spins out of control and someone dies, a family deeply mourns and pious wishes abound.

We have become accustomed to pledges of tougher punishment and measures, which are quickly forgotten once the klieg lights of publicity turn away.

What is left is the mourning for a life lost for no reason. May 19-year-old Alkis Kampanos be the last victim of a situation that can be corrected if all parties involved have the will to do so.

Football fan club violence cannot be confronted ad hoc, just when blood has covered the steps of a Thessaloniki apartment building.

Those responsible must constantly keep this in mind, even when it is no longer in the news and nobody is concerned with the issue. What is needed is a conceptual continuous policy line that will transcend the changes of ministers, governments, and parties.

No one expects the rooting out of the problem to be undertaken with pomp and ceremony and grandiose rhetoric about measures that are almost never implemented. It is enough for something to be done, albeit silently, behind the scenes, in order to definitively put an end to this scourge.

This is not an easy or painless mission.

It is, however, necessary for a European country that wants the situation in athletics to reflect its development.

Greece is not the first country or the last country that will attempt to put an end to football fan club violence, which means we can do it, as long as we pursue the effort to the very end.