Dutch give football thugs a good talking to

Authorities in the Netherlands are turning to technology to keep the nation’s soccer hooligans in check.

ADT Holland is working with the country’s Department of Justice on a voice recognition system that will call hooligans on their home phones to ensure they are complying with match day stadium bans.

Voice verification technology supplied by Israeli firm Dmatek Ltd will ensure that the nefarious Netherlanders are indeed watching the game from the sofa instead the terraces and wielding nothing more lethal than a warm frikadel.

The system is clearly fool-proof as long as the strategy also includes a ban on marketing call forwarding technology to anyone with a conviction for violent disorder.

Meanwhile a number of Dutch football hooligans have turned themselves in after police sent 17,000 text messages to the phones of fans who had attended one particularly fractious game earlier this year.

The police were only looking for information from potential witnesses to rioting before during and after the game back in April. However, some of the recipients felt the hi-tech appeal showed they were close to having their collars felt, so they put their hands up and surrendered to police.

Mmm, maybe a computer generated phone call will be enough to keep Amsterdam’s streets aggro free after all. ®