European Soccer Culture Has A Problem
There’s a big part of European soccer fans that are very jealous about their culture and tend to make fun of everything new and different that comes from places that are not traditional soccer hotbeds as their country is. They laugh when you talk about the uniqueness and the incredible shows of the Asian fans, and if you try to explain how fast is growing soccer in America and how passionate are fans from Portland or Atlanta they tell you that for them soccer it’s just a show, that that’s not the real sport we play and that “it’s not soccer, it’s football”. There are obviously a lot of reasons why they should be proud of the culture they’ve built, also because that culture inspired many and many fans around the globe, including the ones that they’d be laughing about. But even if sometimes we can fell in love with the images of fan chanting and honouring the team they love, or because of the amazing tifos they are able to build, we should never forget that in some part of the continent this fan culture has deep roots in the world of neo-fascism, racism and sexism, and can cause deaths, violence and exclusion, which is the opposite of what sports stand for. The usually criticised American fan culture, where fans go to the arena or to the stadium for the match, but not only for the match, and also for making a fun experience, for eating and meeting with friends. It’s a culture where everyone can enter in the stadium, regardless of the jersey he/she’s wearing, of his/her sex, religion, sexual orientation and literally everything else. Some Americans may envy the “autenticity” of the European tifo, but they should also remember that in recent years there has been in the USA there has been only one and extemporaneous fan-related murder, when in May 2013, after a playoff game, a San Antonio and a Golden State fan were murdered in a gunshot, while in Europe this kind of situations are common, even if luckily not as much as they used to, and a few weeks ago a policeman died in an accident that is related to soccer, after suffering a heart attack during a clash between Athletic Bilbao and Spartak Moscow. It’s curious in fact that one of the few homicide-related stats in which the USA are not in the first positions it’s actually fan-related killings. Anyway, during the last week the European soccer culture didn’t really showed its best face, with an excessive amount of fans not-really-encouraging behaviours that made the headlines not only in Europe.
West Ham fans invade the pitch of the Olympic Stadium
It’s the 68th minute of the Premier League match between West Ham and Burnley, and the home team is losing by one after a Ashley Barnes goal just a few minutes before when a fan invade the pitch and is strongly tackled by the Hammers player who wears the armband, Mark Noble, who seems really unhappy with the behaviour of the unknown fan. The London team will then lose the match 3–0 after a brace by the All White Chris Wood, and sits now in the 16th position in the Premier League table, totally in the middle of a savage relegation-fight against well-renowned clubs as Southampton, Stoke City and Crystal Palace. The clash between a West Ham fan and his captain wasn’t absolutely an isolated case in past weekend’s match. At least other three pitch invasion were reported, as well as two assaults on the stand, and one of those invaders was also able to pick up the corner flag and plant it in the centre circle, which, as we discovered later, has a very precise meaning, and want to symbolise the disconnection between fans and the owners. In fact, one of the chant that was easily recognisable during the match said “Sack the Board”, which also comprehend the two co-owners of the team, David Gold and David Sullivan. It should not sound new to your ears that West Ham fans are unhappy with the way their team is ruled, especially after the forced moving from the historical and beloved Boleyn’s Ground to the modern, avant-garde, but also athletic-track-equipped and, for some fans, soulless Olympic Stadium, built for London 2012’s Games. You may have heard somewhere that now “I’m forever blowing bubbles” doesn’t sound the same anymore in the new stadium. West Ham fans have reasons why to be angry with the owners, but they should also understand that these kind of demonstrations, even if they make a lot of noise on the media, can be scary for the other people, for the casual fans and the families and the kids that just want to go to the stadium to have a good time and enjoy their favourite sports.
Lille fans attack their own players after a draw vs Montpellier
It’s been a long, wild and strange season for Lille, and considering their situation ─ the team is fighting to avoid relegation despite the great expectations at the beginning of the season ─ it’s not in any way destined to become easier for the Northern France’s team, but what surely no one was expecting was a mass pitch invasion by the fans after the draw against Montpellier, in a match between the two teams that surprisingly won Ligue 1 during this decade. The LFP, the Professional League association, had to deal in recent times with a lot of angry and problematic fans such as Bastia’s and OM’s ultras, and they surely weren’t complacent when they had to punish the clubs for their fans’ behaviour. But what surprised more of the Lille’s pitch invasion is that it was an unprecedented attack to the players of the team, which were forced to withdraw from the pitch and find a shelter in the locker room. The problem with the European Soccer Culture is exactly this one: fans think that they are partly owners of the team not as a company but as a “moral entity”, and that players owe in some ways something to them. This is the other side of the coin of the fans’ sense of belonging that is so fascinating for people all over the world. The sooner fans will understand that they’re not entitled of any decision in the professional soccer club they love, unless obviously fans are the actual owners of the club, as it usually happens in Germany per 50%+1 law, the better will be for the game and for its image.
A disallowed goal cause the protest of PAOK fans and owner
If there’s a European country that in recent times had to deal with a huge wave of fan violence that is surely Greece. It’s the fifth time in no more than three years that the left government by Alexis Tsipras decided to stop the Greek League for the incredible amount of fan violence. Actually in this particular case fans are not the real protagonists of the vicissitude, because the man that ended up on the cover of world’s sports news was Russian businessman of Greek descent Ivan Savvidis, PAOK owner and former Russian MP with Vladimir Putin’s party. After a 90th minute goal disallowed to his team, Savvidis decided to express his disappointment entering on the field armed with a gun, intimating his players to abandon the match. Even if this crazy event is not strictly related to fans, I think that still tells a lot about the way, amazing in some ways and dangerous in other ways, we live soccer in Europe, because even if things THAT crazy happen, luckily, at an extremely low rate, it’s impossible to not note how sports events are mostly a place where people go to forget how they behave and what they believe in the outside’s world, and where sometimes our worst instincts go beyond the rational part of our brains. And even if this ends up in something amazing like this, or this, it can also create very dangerous, and sometimes deadly, situations.
