<p>Why does this really cool game breed hooliganism among its fans?</p>
<p>[Travel</a> | Swedish soccer fans brawl on airplane | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2009206292_websoccerflight11.html]Travel”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2009206292_websoccerflight11.html)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>:eek: </p>
<p>All this rioting and rowdy behavior - I just don’t get it!</p>
<p>as opposed to what?
<p>Maybe the percentage of bad behavior is similar for team sports with large fan bases but there is so much soccer in the world, there is a higher absolute number of acts of outrageous behavior? Or maybe the rowdy soccer fans get more publicity?</p>
<p>And speaking of team sports, how 'bout them Cavs?!?!?</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>There is no way that soccer moms are as bad as hockey dads… :)</p>
<p>Hockey breeds its own “hooliganism” at all levels, including players and fans!</p>
<p>Most recent article. (there are many more…)
[D.C</a>. Sports Bog - How Not to React to a Loss](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2009/05/how_not_to_react_to_a_loss.html?hpid=artslot]D.C”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2009/05/how_not_to_react_to_a_loss.html?hpid=artslot)</p>
<p>Must be a typo, MwM. I’m sure you meant how 'bout them Caps.</p>
<p>Has there ever been a brawl at a baseball or football game? I mean fans going at it? I can’t remember there ever being one anything close to what soccer has routinely. For the most part, that activity stays on the field in those sports and many times in baseball nothing really happens-- all the players just go stand around the field for a few minutes.</p>
<p>Quote: “Has there ever been a brawl at a baseball or football game?”</p>
<p>Yes. Red Sox and Yankee games seem to bring out the best in some fans. :eek:</p>
<p>One example: [Sox</a> fan will pony up $ for brawl with Yank backer - BostonHerald.com](<a href=“http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1093885]Sox”>http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1093885)</p>
<p>Google Red Sox and Yankees. Many more brawl incidents can be found! (both players and fans…)</p>
<p>Also, soccer is the most popular fan sport in the world. Statistically speaking, the incidents related to worldwide soccer may not be as profound as one thinks.</p>
<p>BB, I’ve been trying to figure out the answer to your question for years. I still don’t have one. Here in Toronto, there are professional teams in hockey (2), baseball, football, basketball, lacrosse, and soccer. The only team that has had serious fan behavior issues is the soccer team, the only one. It certainly isn’t the majority of their fans but it’s still an issue, and this is only their third season. The other teams have been around a long time and there are not the same concerns with fans acting like idiots when you go to a game.</p>
<p>This looks like it provides an interesting attempt at explaining global soccer / fan behavor…
[Wide</a> World of Sports: Soccer mirrors globalization and its discontents. - Reason Magazine](<a href=“http://www.reason.com/news/show/36572.html]Wide”>http://www.reason.com/news/show/36572.html)</p>
<p>Interesting quote from article: </p>
<p>"Evidently, the world’s most popular sport is also a monument to role playing, with fans adopting multiple identities through their clubs. Some of these can be very disturbing: Many hard-core European fan clubs are nationalist, even racist; Belgrade’s infamous Red Star fans, for example, formed the core of Arkan’s Tigers, a militia devoted to ethnic cleansing.</p>
<p>That said, most fans are not budding Arkans, and even soccer bigotry is often more part of the ritual of collective fan identity than a true call to violent action.</p>
<p>That doesn’t make it less loathsome, of course, but for a phenomenon to be understood, some lucidity is demanded. As author Tim Parks wrote in his ode to Italian soccer, A Season With Verona (strangely absent from Foer’s bibliography, though he did interview Parks), for the soccer fan, “Identity is more important than morality. Extremism offers an excitement that moderation cannot afford.”"</p>
<p>You have to remember that many if not most soccer teams in Europe were founded as outflows of other groups like workers unions or public servants. That plus the nature of large cities having many teams naturally led to “us vs them” mentalities with often political undercurrents.</p>
<p>alwaysamom,</p>
<p>Check this out. ;)</p>
<p>[MLB</a> - Toronto the rowdy - FOX Sports on MSN](<a href=“http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9443852/Toronto-the-rowdy]MLB”>http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9443852/Toronto-the-rowdy)</p>
<p>(Blame it on the beer!)</p>
<p>1sokkermom, </p>
<p>The important line in that article is this:</p>
<p>“It’s believed to be the first time a game was halted at Rogers Centre because of fans.”</p>
<p>The Blue Jays security having to eject 50 fans a season over 80-something games with 30,000-50,000 at a game is not the same thing that goes on at the FC games, trust me. Same with the Leaf and Raptors games having minimal issues like this. Drunken fans are an issue in every sport, and always have been. I remember going to hockey games in the old EHL when I was a kid and it wasn’t unusual for fans to throw full cups of beer onto the opposing team’s bench. The difference here with the FC games is that the rowdy behavior is expected and encouraged. The booster group sits in one section of the stadium and soccer clubs in the city that take kids’ teams to the games are warned ahead of time, by the FC team officials who arrange these outings!, to steer clear of that area. I have been attending professional sporting events for about 45 years and I’ve never seen behavior like I’ve seen at these soccer games.</p>
<p>It’s unlikely that sports venues will ever stop selling beer. Concessions provide levels of revenue for teams that often surpass the ticket prices. And I suppose that there will always be some men who turn into Mr. Hyde when they get within close proximity of an arena, a stadium, or a soccer pitch.</p>
<p>I suggest you read Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs. (He wrote A Walk in the Woods and lived in the UK for decades.)</p>
<p>To disagree with those who point to hockey or other sports, soccer is by far, absolutely and without a doubt, the most violent among fans. Liverpool, for example, recently marked the anniversary of the mass trampling to death of some 96 fans. In those days, to reduce the literal mass attacks in the stands, the supporters were herded into corrals divided by fences - which in some stadiums became giant enclosures with high walls to prevent dangerous or disgusting objects from being thrown over. People were crushed in the entries and then against the fences.</p>
<p>British fans were for some years banned from international tourneys and soccer maintains a long list of banned fans - still dominated by Brits. The last World Cup saw what is typical: pre-emptive arrests, attacks on random supporters, fighting in the streets. </p>
<p>The why is in Buford’s book. Mostly class and racial hate, mixed with boredom & alcohol, dependency on hated government programs for money and traditional hatred of other countries. It’s as though they’re enacting a mini-war at the match.</p>
<p>As an aside, it’s traditional in the US to yell, “Kill the umpire” - per Casey at the Bat - but in soccer, particularly in S. America, you get real attempts on referees’ lives.</p>
<p>But violence is not the only problem for football. You would simply not believe the racism. To pick only a few small examples from an extensive litany: </p>
<ul>
<li>Italian fans throw bananas at black players. Some will put on gorilla masks and there are monkey chants. </li>
<li>Because Ajax (Holland) has traditional ties to the Dutch Jewish community, opposing fans dress as Nazis - this from Dutch fans, believe it or not - give Nazi salutes and sing anti-semitic chants. </li>
<li>German fans have - I know this is hard to believe - chanted at Polish fans that the Germans need to finish the job of WWII, that they didn’t kill enough Poles. (And rather famously in Europe, a Polish paper last cup printed a drawing of the coach holding the severed heads of two German players with the headline “the only good German is a …”</li>
</ul>
<p>I could go on. The crowds in Russia have become infamous in soccer for their racist, anti-semitic and even homophobic (why?) displays. France has been reeling for the last few years from a long series of racist incidents involving black and Arab players - particularly in the south and particularly around Marseilles. </p>
<p>Britain has cleaned up much of its act, mostly in my opinion because so much money has flowed into the Premiership that the clubs can’t allow this kind of behavior; the consequences for marketing are too much. And money flowing in has meant much higher ticket prices so the old hooligan crowd has been squeezed down. And the police have their lists and they actively prevent banned fans from attending or traveling to games. It’s perhaps ironic or sad that it’s easier for the police to detain a soccer hooligan than to prevent fanatical Muslim imams from preaching murder.</p>
<p>We have the occasional hockey dad brawl and the odd Little League melee among idiotic parents but none of this other behavior would be tolerated in the US.</p>