To contain the ‘Barras Bravas’ or the passionate Argentine football fans, who invaded the Arena de Sao Paulo for the second time in a week and who might again cause trouble during Argentina’s semifinal clash against the Netherlands today, there will be extra security measures and a more aggressive approach form the law and security enforcers.
Currently Brazil have six section of polices in each of its 27 states and the Military Police are the most scrutinizing one among them. The other five include the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Police, the Railway Federal Police, the Civil Police and the Military Fireman Corporations. The Sao Paulo Military Police is the largest police force in Brazil and one of the largest in the world with over 138000 personnel. The SPMP comprises of more than 28000 radio users across the state of Sao Paulo.
Without disclosing the absolute numbers, the Military Police said in a statement on last Wednesday that for a match of such high magnitude, there would be a 30% increase in security personnel in and around the Arena de Sao Paulo than it had for the World Cup opening ceremony.
The game is being considered a high risk encounter, especially after the 1-0 victory of Argentina over Belgium in the quarter-finals. There were occasions when the police were working to contain the overflowing euphoria of fans around the stadium, especially during several outbreaks of disagreement with Brazilians regarding exchange of teases and the sale of alcohol, which have become the chief causes of concern for the security enforcers.
The Military Police will have the support of the Federal Police to control access of the crowd and to contain the violent behavior of the ‘Barras Bravas’. In the match between Argentina vs Belgium in Brasilia, 400 federal police officers patrolled in the stadium, airport and ground access. Inside the Arena Corinthians, the number of ‘stewards’ (private security guards who work in the arenas) will be virtually the same as the other games, 900 to 950. All the stewards, however, were instructed to pay special attention to areas with greater division between Argentines and Brazilians.
The Local Organizing Committee (LOC) noted several untoward incidents between fans of the two South American rivals during the second round against Switzerland and the majority were resolved by the stewards themselves, without the need for referral to the police. However, a total of 282 broken seats were found after the match and now have been reset, and will be okay to use in the semifinals.