Beautiful game, reprehensible sport

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/06/2016 (3621 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sure, it’s a “beautiful game.”

But soccer is also an ugly — and, increasingly — irredeemable sport.

There were soccer riots again in France on Sunday. A day after the Russians and English got into it at Euro 2016 in Marseille, German and Ukrainian fans brawled in Lille.

There was the ritual wringing of hands, afterward, of course. And there were pledges from UEFA that — we’re not making this up — “next time” it happens there will be serious consequences.

Riot once, shame on you. Riot twice, shame on me.

Only in soccer.

But really, no one should be surprised by what’s gone on in France the last few days. If news is the unexpected, then reports that people around soccer — from the gangsters atop FIFA to the fans in the cheap seats — behaved reprehensibly is not exactly of the “man bites dog” variety.

Indeed, a bunch of fans beating each other unconscious inside and outside a stadium is actually on the low end of the bad behaviour continuum in a sport in which — this is a documented fact — hundreds of migrant labourers have already died in Qatar building the infrastructure for that country’s ill-advised hosting of the 2022 World Cup.

The only thing more outrageous than the fact hundreds have died in appalling working conditions building shiny new sports palaces for an autocratic regime is that the response from the world of soccer — again, from the highest offices of FIFA to the diehard fans in the stands — has been… crickets.

Think about what it says about how immunized we’ve become to the outrages of soccer that the reaction to hundreds of migrant labourers dying in the service of the sport’s signature event is, “I’ll have another pint.”

But then, that’s been the same shrug the world of soccer has had to an endless number of outrages involving the sport, from the rampant corruption that is the de facto modus operandi of FIFA to the endless incidents of racism — on the pitch and in the stands.

It is perfectly symbolic that the next World Cup, in 2018, will be held in Russia. Four years after another kleptocracy — the IOC — gave the cover of legitimacy to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in Sochi, FIFA will do it all over with the World Cup.

Putin and FIFA will, no doubt, use the opportunity to share tips about where to hide your stolen millions now that the Panama Papers have spoiled the party.

Now none of this, please understand, is meant as a criticism of the game of soccer. Winnipeg is a multicultural town and I live here, too. I’d like to continue doing so, for a while longer yet.

Soccer is for me — like it is for many Canadians — a bit dry. But there’s nothing so wrong with the game of soccer that couldn’t be fixed by the addition of a simultaneous second ball on the field of play.

Think about it. Patent pending.

But there is also something truly beautiful about a sport that is accessible to even the world’s poorest. Crumple up some old newspapers and tie them together with string in the shape of a ball — I saw a bunch of kids do this in Thailand once — and you’ve got a game.

That — plus a couple thousand bucks a year — will allow your kid to play hockey at a low level in this country.

So yeah, a gorgeous game and a despicable sport.

Consider this by way of context: The NFL over the past 18 months has been brought almost to its knees by an incident in which one team allegedly under-inflated balls used in a playoff game by a couple of pounds per square inch.

Deflategate is still inching its way through the U.S. courts and might yet end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, easily the most powerful man in American sport, might yet lose his job over it.

But hundreds of dead labourers, riots, racism and a never-ending perp walk outside the offices of FIFA and it’s still business as usual in soccer, year after year after year.

It doesn’t have to be that way, of course. At the same time as Euro 2016 has been mired by riots the past few days, the U.S. has been hosting the Americas version of that event with Copa America.

Instead of rioting, there’s been dancing and singing in the stands at Copa America.

All of which is to say that a big part of soccer’s problem is, actually, a European problem, particularly when it comes to hooliganism.

A hot-blooded continent that at one time let off steam by holding — at regular intervals — continent-wide wars now seems to use soccer to vent at least some of that pent-up aggression.

Membership in the European Union comes with a covenant you won’t invade your neighbour, but there’s nothing in there preventing you from beating the hell out of the guy sitting in the next section.

Soccer stars are now venerated in Europe the way military leaders used to be and it all plays out against a backdrop of nationalism, flavoured with just a hint of unstated racism — not unlike the current Brexit debate in England where the key issue of “immigration” has become code for “we’re really uncomfortable with all the dark-skinned Arabs living in Brighton these days.”

The general consensus over the weekend was that the Russians were to blame for the riot with England supporters, although a Russian official did get some traction with his argument that it was actually the French who were to blame for not having enough soldiers in the stands in Marseille to separate the English and Russian fans.

Blame the French — a tried and tested dodge. But let’s be crystal-clear — the problem isn’t that the French didn’t have enough military in the stands; the problem is soccer is a sport where you even need military in the stands.

Think about that argument for a second — if only there was a bigger army at the sporting event, none of this rioting would have happened.

Only in soccer would someone say that with a straight face.

Again, some context: A couple years ago a Winnipeg woman took her kid to the Banjo Bowl. The kid was wearing a Saskatchewan Roughriders jersey. Bombers fans said mean things to the kid. The mom called up the Free Press.

And we did a story on it. Really. People were outraged, mostly, that the kid got picked on.

But dozens get their brains bashed in at a soccer game and the collective reaction is, “meh.”

Do you know what a sporting event that requires military to be present to keep fans from killing each other should be called?

Cancelled.

email: paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek