Hooligan violence, which led to three police officers being injured (one needed surgery), led to the calling off of the Apollonas-Ael evening match in Limassol on Sunday. This resulted in the familiar exchange of accusations and the usual attempt by those involved to pass on the responsibility for what happened.

Ael, the club whose fans started the trouble by storming the gates of the stadium so they would not be checked by stewards before entry and take in banned items such as flares, could not even bring itself to condemn this disgraceful behaviour. Instead of taking a clear stand against the hooliganism, it focused on the decision to cancel the match, calling for an investigation of the “weird and dark aspects of what happened last night.” It added that it would not say anything else, until it collected all the necessary information so “we would be able to take a serious and responsible position.”

The problem was the cancellation of the match, rather than the violent and aggressive behaviour of its supporters which led to the injury of three policemen. The police were quite right to advise the postponement of the match for safety reasons, advice that the referee and person in charge of stadium security heeded in taking the final decision. There were no “dark aspects” to this decision, as Ael claimed, but it was the only decision that could have been taken under the circumstances.

It was sad hearing the police trying to defend their actions, because in such cases everyone blames the force. Even the justice minister, Marios Hartsiotis said there were “holes” in the planning by police as well as other parties involved. This was seized on by Akel, which declared that the police had to “create conditions of safety for everyone, inside and outside stadiums.” Akel’s only concern is to score political points.

Has anyone considered how many officers should have been on duty so there were no holes in the policing? How many were needed to stop a rowdy mob of 600 Ael supporters breaking down the gate of the stadium to enter? Probably a few hundred, but why should the taxpayer pay for the security? If the bill for the policing was paid by the home club, as should be the practice, then there could 500 officers on duty and there would be no holes in the policing. But the justice ministry, proposed that high-risk matches such as Sunday’s could be played without away fans.

This arrangement, when it was discussed a few months ago, was rejected by the Cyprus Football Association (CFA), which ignored police warnings of crowd trouble at Sunday’s match. The CFA, disingenuously, claimed the trouble was not caused by clashes between rival fans, but by clashes between one set of fans and the police. This, presumably, proved the CFA was correct to ignore the police warnings.

The problem is that the people that run the CFA and the football clubs are incapable of behaving like grown-ups and taking responsibility for what is happening in the game. It is always someone else’s fault. In one respect they are right. Successive governments have allowed the clubs to break the law with impunity (€38m of tax dues), encouraging them to act like spoiled children that never take responsibility for anything. It is naïve to expect them all of a sudden to behave like grown-ups.