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Fears of Violence Greet Return of English Football Season

Clashes have erupted in cities across England and Northern Ireland since a mass stabbing in Southport but authorities say far-right elements have fueled the unrest. Roland LLOYD PARRY / AFP
Clashes have erupted in cities across England and Northern Ireland since a mass stabbing in Southport but authorities say far-right elements have fueled the unrest. Roland LLOYD PARRY / AFP
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Fears of Violence Greet Return of English Football Season

Clashes have erupted in cities across England and Northern Ireland since a mass stabbing in Southport but authorities say far-right elements have fueled the unrest. Roland LLOYD PARRY / AFP
Clashes have erupted in cities across England and Northern Ireland since a mass stabbing in Southport but authorities say far-right elements have fueled the unrest. Roland LLOYD PARRY / AFP

Authorities are eyeing the start of the English football season this weekend with trepidation, following riots which have rocked towns and cities across the country.
Dozens of teams in the English Football League -- below the high-profile Premier League -- start playing their first games from Saturday afternoon, including in cities that have seen disorder, said AFP.
The unrest followed a knife attack that killed three children. But officials have blamed far-right elements -- some with links to England's decades-old football hooligan scene -- for orchestrating the violence which saw mosques and immigration-linked sites torched and police targeted.
Tommy Robinson, a notorious anti-Muslim agitator with a string of criminal convictions including for football-related offences, has been accused of helping to fuel the unrest through constant social media posts about the events.
Crowds at some gatherings were heard chanting his name -- which is actually a pseudonym borrowed from an infamous Luton Town Football Club hooligan in the 2000s.
The prospect of thousands gathering Saturday for games in towns and cities including Middlesbrough, Hull and London has prompted concern that unrest could flare again after two nights of relative quiet.
More than 80,000 fans are also expected at Wembley on Saturday when Manchester City and Manchester United play for the FA Community Shield.
'Tarnish'
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, an avid football fan, conceded Friday that the start of the new season "added into the mix" of challenges facing police.
"Whatever the challenge, we have to rise to it," he insisted to UK broadcasters.
The UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) said forces nationwide were collaborating to ensure that "all relevant intelligence" was shared ahead of the football games.
A UKFPU spokesperson said it was being updated about arrests during the recent unrest and the possibility of banning those people from football stadiums.
Courts make Football Banning Orders after a football-related criminal conviction or following a police request to keep individuals from attending matches and even nearby places in some cases.
They have been extended in recent years to cover convictions for online hate crime linked to the sport and convictions for selling or taking Class A drugs.
Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, who heads the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) overseeing the UKFPU, urged people not to "tarnish football with the violence that we've seen".
"Football brings communities together," he told a media briefing.
"Yes, some of these violent thugs attach themselves to the fringes of it, but not everywhere, not all clubs, and certainly not for the totality of football."
'Crossovers'
Mark Doidge, a Loughborough University academic who has researched UK and European football fan cultures, said English football typically requires "a major police operation" but that officers now have experience.
He downplayed any overlap between recent disorder and fans of the so-called beautiful game, and the notion that English football was being used to recruit people to the far-right.
"Although there are crossovers between the demographics -- some fans are also far-right -- not all fans are, and not all far-right are fans or attend matches," he told AFP.
"There doesn't seem to be any coordinated activity taking place at football, and no protests have been planned for stadiums."
Doidge noted some fans may spontaneously chant or protest about recent events, which could itself prove divisive with other fans and provide an unpredictable element for police.
"If confrontation comes from fans of the same team, then this might be something that they haven't prepared for," he added.
Meanwhile, some football clubs in towns which have seen recent rioting have been spoken out against the troubles.
"We utterly condemn the violent and racist scenes we have seen on the streets of Middlesbrough," Steve Gibson, chairman of the northeast English town's club said in a joint statement with its local MP and mayor this week.
"We in Middlesbrough have a proud and inclusive history. Over the centuries our town and our football club have welcomed people from across the world."

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Brazil Investigating Cause of Fiery Plane Crash That Killed 61

Aerial view of the wreckage of an airplane that crashed with 61 people on board in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on August 9, 2024. (AFP)
Aerial view of the wreckage of an airplane that crashed with 61 people on board in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on August 9, 2024. (AFP)
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Brazil Investigating Cause of Fiery Plane Crash That Killed 61

Aerial view of the wreckage of an airplane that crashed with 61 people on board in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on August 9, 2024. (AFP)
Aerial view of the wreckage of an airplane that crashed with 61 people on board in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on August 9, 2024. (AFP)

Brazilian authorities worked Saturday to piece together what exactly caused the plane crash in Sao Paulo state the prior day that killed all 61 people on board.

Local airline Voepass' plane, an ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop, was headed for Sao Paulo’s international airport in Guarulhos with 57 passengers and 4 crew members when it went down in the city of Vinhedo.

Images recorded by witnesses showed the aircraft in a flat spin and plunging vertically before smashing to the ground inside a gated community, and leaving an obliterated fuselage consumed by fire. Residents said there were no injuries on the ground.

Rain drizzled down on rescue workers as they recovered the first bodies from the scene in the chill of the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. Some residents of the condominium silently left to spend the night elsewhere.

It was the world's deadliest airline crash since January 2023, when 72 people died on board a Yeti Airlines plane in Nepal that stalled and crashed while making its landing approach. That plane also was an ATR 72, and the final report blamed pilot error.

A report Friday from Brazilian television network Globo’s meteorological center said it "confirmed the possibility of the formation of ice in the region of Vinhedo," and local media cited experts pointing to icing as a potential cause for the crash.

An American Eagle ATR 72-200 crashed on Oct. 31, 1994, and the United States National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause was ice buildup while the plane was circling in a holding pattern. The plane rolled at about 8,000 feet and dove into the ground, killing all 68 people on board. The US Federal Aviation Administration issued operating procedures for ATRs and similar planes, telling pilots not to use the autopilot in icing conditions.

But Brazilian aviation expert Lito Sousa cautioned that meteorological conditions alone might not be enough to explain why the plane fell in the manner that it did on Friday.

"Analyzing an air crash just with images can lead to wrong conclusions about the causes," Sousa told the AP by phone. "But we can see a plane with loss of support, no horizontal speed. In this flat spin condition, there’s no way to reclaim control of the plane."

Speaking to reporters Friday in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo Public Security Secretary Guilherme Derrite said the plane’s black box had been recovered, apparently in a preserved state.

Marcelo Moura, director of operations for Voepass, told reporters Friday night that, while there were forecasts for ice, they were within acceptable levels for the aircraft.

Likewise, Lt. Col. Carlos Henrique Baldi of the Brazilian air force’s center for the investigation and prevention of air accidents, told reporters in a late afternoon press conference that it was still too early to confirm whether ice caused the crash.

The plane is "certified in several countries to fly in severe icing conditions, including in countries unlike ours, where the impact of ice is more significant," said Baldi, who heads the center’s investigation division.

In an earlier statement, the center said that the plane’s pilots did not call for help nor say they were operating under adverse weather conditions. There has been no evidence that the pilots tried to contact controllers of regional airports, either, Ports and Airports Minister Silvio Costa Filho told reporters Friday night in Vinhedo.

Brazil’s Federal Police began its own investigation, and dispatched specialists in plane crashes and the identification of disaster victims, it said in a statement.

French-Italian plane manufacturer ATR said in a statement that it had been informed that the accident involved its ATR 72-500 model, and that company specialists are "fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer."

The ATR 72 generally is used on shorter flights. The planes are built by a joint venture of Airbus in France and Italy’s Leonardo S.p.A.

Crashes involving various models of the ATR 72 have resulted in 470 deaths going back to the 1990s, according to a database of the Aviation Safety Network.

Brazilian authorities began transferring the corpses to the morgue Friday, and called on victims’ family members to bring any medical, X-ray and dental exams to help identify the bodies. Blood tests were also done to help identification efforts.

Costa Filho, the airports minister, said the air force's center will also conduct a criminal probe of the accident.

"We will investigate so this case is fully explained to the Brazilian people," he said.