There was an air of inevitability when fighting broke out in the away end during Hungarys 1-1 draw with England at Wembley on Tuesday night.
Hungarys fans had been disciplined over their behaviour at four of the previous six games played in front of fans, with homophobic banners seen against Portugal and Germany, and monkey chanting heard against France and England.
The abuse directed at Raheem Sterling and his teammate Jude Bellingham at last months game in Budapest led to Fifa imposing a stadium closure on Hungary after another enforced by Uefa because of the summers troubles.
In Hungary, there is an overriding sense of injustice, with both bans vehemently condemned by football fans and government ministers.
At Ferencvaross game with Real Betis in the Europa League on 30 September, the Green Monsters Ultra group revealed a banner reading: Double standards instead of equality! This is not FARE!
Hungarys foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, wrote on Facebook in July of the Uefa ban: The committee that makes a decision like that is a pitiful and cowardly body. They should be ashamed of themselves.
In Hungary, the Fidesz partys governmental figures are loth to criticise Hungarian football fans, owing to the close relationship between the government and ultra groups. These relationships are more than a decade old, going back as far as when the government was in opposition.
In 2009, in an effort to contain neo-Nazi violence on the terraces, Fidesz met ultras groups from Hungarys biggest clubs and formed the now-infamous and unmistakeable black-shirted Carpathian Brigade.
Founded on the promise of bringing all fans together the ultras groups, the left, liberals, the right for years the Carpathian Brigade built a healthy relationship within Hungary. The group conducts a wide range of charity work and is credited with bringing a much-improved atmosphere to national team games.
Fifa will take no disciplinary action over the confrontation between England's Kyle Walker and Poland's Kamil Glik during last month's World Cup qualifier in Warsaw owing to a lack of evidence. It is understood Football Association officials immediately reported the incident to the Fifa match delegate, with the Polish federation denying any racist element. Both associations were asked for their observations on the incident by Fifa.
A spokesperson for the world governing body said: "After a thorough assessment which included relevant match reports, the Fifa disciplinary committee has decided not to open disciplinary proceedings in relation to Poland against England on September 8 due to insufficient evidence. Fifa's position remains firm and resolute in rejecting all forms of discrimination. In this particular case, no evidence has been produced to support further action."PA Media
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Only the big matches had a proper atmosphere but the ultras of the clubs did not unite behind the national team or skipped the games altogether, Gergely Marosi, a sports journalism lecturer at Budapest Metropolitan University, tells the Guardian.
Because these ultras had their conflicts amongst themselves, sometimes they did not stand close to each other, otherwise there was a chance for trouble. That obviously did not help the atmosphere. Chants were disjointed and coming from different sectors; there were a lot of lifeless games in terms of fan performance.
Yet the Carpathian Brigade soon became a victim of its own success. For many years it was able to keep its members in check, but as the group grew, so did the trouble. Games against fierce rivals Romania in 2013 and 2014 saw coordinated violence, and at Euro 2016 the Carpathian Brigade made headlines around Europe for the first time after clashing with stewards during the game against Iceland in Marseille.
Initially being made up of 50-100 core ultras, the membership grew and the neo-Nazi element that the Hungarian government tried so hard to contain was again seen on the terraces. The group in time became a sort of safe space for that white nationalist element to fester.
White nationalism on the terraces of Hungarian football stadiums dates back to the 1950s, and grew through the 1970s and 1980s as Hungarys youth, disillusioned with communism, became more brazen with their protests.
When the Soviet system collapsed, fan violence at games became commonplace and most of the regular match-attending fans not interested in violence walked away. When communism fell in 1989, attendances in Hungary averaged about 7,000. Today they are below 3,000.
The remaining match-going public largely share similar sentiments. White power tattoos are common among the ultras groups at domestic games, as are Nazi-inspired banners, and this has spilled into national team games more recently, so much so that before Hungarys European Championship game in Munich in June, the Carpathian Brigade warned fans on its Facebook page that they would need to cover tattoos to abide by local laws.
The Carpathian Brigade has become almost impossible to control. The principles it was founded on are starting to shatter and it is impossible to determine who belongs to the group.
On Tuesday night the core of the Carpathian Brigade were not in attendance, yet the groups rising infamy is breeding a culture that inspires those in the ultras culture outside the groups core to hide under its banner.
It was a mix of Hungarian and Polish fans who caused the trouble at Wembley on Tuesday night. Poland and Hungarys close connections date back centuries and in football terms over the past decade the ultras groups have begun to form ever more intertwined relationships.
Before 2009 Hungarys ultras at national team games were fragmented. Ferencvaros ultras would not associate with their rival ultras Ujpest, and neither would Fehervar, Honved or Debrecen. Each ultras group would sit in a different part of the stadium and they would never walk under the same banner.
Now under the Carpathian Brigade name, Hungarys ultras (and to a small extent Polands too) have formed alliances that in the fragmented years most would have thought impossible. That name is starting to become one of the most feared and infamous ultras groups in Europe. It is an extremely worrying development and the question is, where it will all end?
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Why Hungary is infected by ultras who are almost impossible to control - The Guardian
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