Now, most people on this board, without meaning to sound uncharitable, are a bit older than I am, and I'm sure you can all think of some great stadium safety initiatives in the past that made you think 'wow, what genius thought that one up?!'

Maybe it was fences round every side of the stand to keep those horrible fans away from the pitch that caused you to applaud.

Perhaps the Mediterranean policing method of hitting people with sticks until they either shut up rioted attracts you more.

All-seater stadia and over-enthusiastic stewards who won't even let you take photographs from the back of the stand at Bristol fucking Rovers? That good enough?

No? Then you've got higher standards when it comes to judging great ideas. You should have a look at this.

I mean really. Words just don't describe it, do they...?

Ban Liverpool. Problem solved.....

Hmmmm. Perhaps we do need the smiley things back.

If the barras weren't so devoted to criminal activities of all sorts, this might actually have a chance of working (especially if they had some sort of revenue sharing system for protection money, perhaps Nathan can advise them). Unfortunately, the leaders are almost all pretty irredeemable bad guys, and the initiative therefore seems more like something thought up after watching Scarface on (pirated) DVD for the 27th time.

Yes, Ursus. A lot of the savvier barras have clearly realised that the business of killing each other occasionally and frequently ruining games for the majority of fans is tarnishing their image somewhat, and thus have decided to get rid of that part of their repertoire.

(I'm pretending for a minute that I actually think the anti-violence pact will be kept to.)

The idea of helping to run the security operations is clearly aimed largely at further entrenching their semi-official positions at their clubs, and thus making them harder to touch when it comes to allegations of drug dealing, weapons-trading, black marketeering, protection rackets and getting free tickets and slices of player transfer revenue. As Ole put it, in any country which took itself seriously, this idea would be laughed out of town. I think it's pretty staggering even by Argentina's lofty standards of near-comic incompetence.

The fact that I can't provide any assuarances that it would be laughed out of town at many Italian clubs would tend to prove Ole's point.