Hooliganism and demand for football in Italy: Attendance and counter-violence policy evaluation

This paper investigates the effect of counter-violence measures, adopted by Italian Government in 2007, on Italian Serie A gate attendance. Starting from the evidence of a negative trend in the average stadium presences, experienced by Italian football since the first 80s, an econometric analysis is proposed to investigate short period determinants of tickets sale at single match level. In the light of the potential detrimental role of football violence, we focus on recent counter-hooliganism policies. These measures, grounded on a ‘fidelity card’, were designed to keep out the violent part of committed fans in favour of the uncommitted. According to our econometric investigation the expected substitution effect failed, and the ‘fidelity card’ strategy did not turn to be successful if evaluated on the average attendance perspective.