When the Turkish football club Fenerbahce returns to European competition this week, with a match in Istanbul against the Spanish team Zaragoza, it will represent a country going through a painful debate about the conduct of its football fans.

Since the stabbing death at a game late last year of Cihat Aktas, a 16-year-old fan of Besiktas, another Istanbul club, Turkey has been convulsed by images of violence at football games, and in debates over what to do about it. Although the boy's death was a relatively rare and bizarre incident - his alleged killer was another Besiktas fan - it has cast a harsh light on the scale of hooliganism at Turkish football matches, and forced both the government and the football authorities finally to acknowledge that they have a serious problem.