Thursday, June 08, 2006

Soccer = brotherly love?

The following statement is from FIFA’s e-mail on June 6th, 2006:

“United Nations Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan and FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter join forces for peace and development. In a joint message welcoming the opening of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan and FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter make an appeal for peace, tolerance and development. Their message is addressed to the whole world as it comes together in Munich to witness the start of the world’s biggest sporting event. Last January, the FIFA President welcomed Kofi A. Annan to FIFA headquarters for a discussion centred around their shared objectives. The two men talked about how sport in general and football in particular can play a key role in development all around the world. Football is a sport that transcends social, cultural and religious divides. Quite simply, football is universal, which is why this unique opportunity to join forces to make the world a better place must be taken”.

I’ve been on its mailing list for several years now. Soccer can bring people together in a peaceful manner? What INCREDIBLE b.s. I can’t think of many sports in the world (not even wrestling, if we can call it a sport) that quite often triggers in people so much hatred and violence. Hatred and violence? In 1964 the worst recorded hooligan-related soccer tragedy in modern times occurred in Lima when no fewer than 318 people died at a Peru-Argentina match. Cases of soccer violence go back to 1908 in Hungary to Bermuda in 1980 to Egypt in 1966 to Yugoslavia in 1955 and 1982 (and pretty well all points in between). Does anyone for example remember the atrocious Heysel tragedy in 1985 involving (mostly) Juventus and Liverpool fans? Hasn’t England had a few major disasters involving fires in the stands? And the 2000 European championship in Belgium/Holland, wasn’t a poor Belgian police officer completely beaten to a pulp by hooligans (I think he’s still in a pretty bad condition)? Let’s take a look at some of the fun things that have happened in Italy’s stadia during the Serie A soccer championship. Years ago a fan in Genoa was knifed to death by a Milan fan. The Italian FA was so “perturbed” that the following Sunday it had—for the first time in its history—suspended the Italian championship. Then there was the case of the poor Fiorentina fan (Dr. Socrates’s former club) who while on a train was practically doused with fire by opposing fans with a Molotov cocktail. He miraculously survived but sustained severe burns on most of his body. Then there are the inevitable burned cars and injured people during Rome’s Roma vs. Lazio derbies. And finally, there is the quasi-comical case just a few years ago in Milan’s San Siro stadium: someone snuck in a scooter on one of the stadium’s three tiers. Fans then launched it below from one tier to the other. Had it hit someone on the head it would have certainly killed him/her. I myself have witnessed up close some of these hooligans. Collectively speaking, they’re pretty dangerous. One explanation for the violence surrounding soccer comes from Eric Dunning over at the University of Leicester (UK):

“A plausible reason why hooliganism is so much more frequent in conjunction with soccer than any other sport might appear at first glance to be the fact that, given its relative lack of overt violence, compare with rugby and American football, soccer provides fewer opportunities for spectators to experience violence vicariously, hence, allowing them less chance cathartically to release aggressive feelings”.

God only knows what hooligans (and not only them) will have in store for us in Germany during the World Cup!

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