Pitched into crisis

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This article was published 25/06/2016 (3375 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Friday morning, Europe awoke to startling news. The United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union.

“Remain” supporters were shell-shocked. Politicians in the U.K. and across Europe expressed disbelief. In the days before the vote, some had warned a “Brexit” would mean disaster, not only for the U.K. or even Europe but for “western political civilization.”

Now the British pound was plunging in value, destabilizing financial markets around the world.

“God help our country,” Paddy Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, and an outspoken EU advocate, tweeted as the results rolled in. Ultimately, David Cameron, the British prime minister, and a staunch EU backer, announced his resignation.

Curiously enough, just as Europe began to fray in Britain, it was coming together across the English Channel. Roughly 2.5 million soccer fans from across the continent are currently gathered in 10 French cities for the 2016 UEFA European championship, known as the Euros.

The tournament has long been a symbol of European unity. Long before the euro became legal tender, soccer was common currency. Held every four years since 1960, the European championship was akin to a family reunion: fuelled by alcohol and interrupted by the occasional fight, but mostly a good-spirited occasion for bonding.

This year’s competition, however, comes at a time of unprecedented problems not only for Europe but also for the sport.

Terrorism, racism, rioting and hooliganism have all tainted the tournament so far. More broadly, soccer is reeling from corrupt officials, blackmail plots, lurid sex scandals and accusations of cheating.

These are ugly days for the beautiful game.

And yet, there have been signs of hope so far in France: a tiny island nation’s exaltation at a last-second goal; an aging, iconoclastic Hungarian goalie’s heroics; a French hero born 9,500 kilometres from France; an Irish miracle and a chance for revenge.

The tournament can’t fix all that is ailing the sport, let alone Europe.

But can it show the continent a way forward?

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Some of the issues affecting soccer are the same as those stirring Europe.

As immigration has altered demographics across the continent, so, too, has it changed the composition of its soccer teams, at the level of both club and country.

Switzerland, a country that two years ago voted to ban minarets, now sports a national team comprised of Muslim players from the former Yugoslavia. Germany, arguably the favourite in France this summer, fields a number of Muslim players born to Turkish parents. Even as those players propel the team on the pitch, however, an increasing number of Germans favours closing the country’s borders to migrants, particularly Muslims.

France also has a diverse team that includes five Muslim players. But the host country hasn’t escaped controversy. When a French-Algerian soccer player was not picked to play in the tournament, he claimed the national team coach had “bowed to the pressure of a racist part of France.” Turkey, meanwhile, is allowed into the tournament but not the EU.

There have been a number of racism rows already in France as Russian, Hungarian and Croatian fans have all been accused of racist salutes or chants. Alexander Shprygin, a Russian fan-group leader who has been photographed performing Nazi salutes, was one of several dozen Russian fans deported from France following clashes with English supporters.

And then there is terrorism.

This is the first European championship held under a state of emergency. When Islamic State militants launched a terrorist attack on symbols of French cosmopolitanism in November, one of their targets was the Stade de France, the national soccer stadium. A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest outside after he was unable to gain entry.

When a member of the same group was caught after co-ordinated attacks in Brussels in March, he told authorities the group’s ultimate target was the Euros. And in May, a Frenchman angered by the surge of Muslim migrants into Europe was arrested at the Ukraine-Poland border trying to smuggle explosives and firearms for possible use in attacks on the tournament.

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As the tournament approached in early June, some wondered if the Euros could somehow save Europe. “Can football heal a divided Europe?” the Guardian asked. Early on in the tournament, the answer appeared to be a resounding no.

Ten days into the tournament, more than 550 “violent supporters” had been arrested, according to The Associated Press. English and Russian hooligans clashed in the stands during their opening game, a fight that culminated in a Russian firing a flare at his opponents. Afterward, Russia was warned further incidents would result in the team’s expulsion.

Turkish and Croatian fans were similarly warned after throwing flares onto the field. And French youth clashed with both British fans and police, who used tear gas and water cannons to quell the unrest.

The tournament reached its nadir when a Northern Ireland supporter fell nine metres from a beach promenade in Nice and died. A few days later, another one of his countrymen died from a heart attack while attending the team’s second game.

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Like a slow-passing storm, however, the tournament has gradually started to show signs of hope: indications soccer has not been swallowed by corruption and cynicism, and the sport might still be capable of uniting Europe, if only for a couple of weeks.

The first sign came in the opening game when a dull French side was rescued by a glorious goal from Dimitri Payet, a player born on Reunion Island, a French department in the Indian Ocean. Relatively unknown a year ago, he has become a star at age 29. He scored again in his team’s second game.

Then there is Gabor Kiraly, Hungary’s 40-year-old goalkeeper. Famously clad in his baggy gray sweatpants, the oldest player in the tournament kept his team in it with a string of saves.

After a heartbreaking tie to Sweden and a thumping at the hands of Belgium, the Republic of Ireland was on the brink of elimination until Robbie Brady powered a late header past Italy. The player was on the verge of tears as he wheeled away from the goal.

Irish fans, meanwhile, appeared to pass on the good luck, fixing a dent in a stranger’s car and stuffing money into the person’s window — singing all the while.

Ireland now finds itself in an elimination-round matchup against France. It’s a chance for revenge for the Irish, who were prevented from playing at the 2010 World Cup by a French player’s handball.

“Ireland owe France. They owe them pain, misery, and suffering,” Luke Edwards wrote in the Telegraph. “They owe them a defeat, and should they somehow manage to knock them out of their own tournament, a beautiful revenge will be theirs.”

This — passion, not prejudice, rivalry, not riots — is what soccer tournaments should be made of.

Switzerland, meanwhile, is so far undefeated in the tournament, thanks in no small part to its Muslim contingent.

Despite the death of its two fans, Northern Ireland advanced to the second round in its first international tournament. Today, it faces another feel-good team and fellow U.K. member, Wales.

On Thursday, the Welsh voted to leave the EU; the Northern Irish voted to stay. Wales is favoured to win again, this time on the soccer pitch.

Last but not least, there is Iceland. It is the underdog of underdogs, less a dark horse than a pony that somehow snuck onto the racetrack and into the starting gate.

Iceland has only 320,000 people, an incredible eight per cent of whom attended its opening game in France. Half the country’s population crowded the downtown of capital Reykjavik to watch its team defeat Austria (population 8.5 million) with a last-second, sliding, breakaway goal.

An Icelandic TV commentator went so insane celebrating, he has become an Internet sensation.

For its heroics, Iceland has earned an elimination game against England.

Iceland will again be the underdog. In terms of European politics, the tiny nation has a head start on its rival, however. Iceland applied to join the EU after the 2009 financial crisis, but after its economy recovered more quickly than anticipated, it withdrew its application last year.

After voting to pull out of the EU Thursday, England may now look to countries such as Iceland for ideas on what it means to be in Europe, but not the EU.

It is an identity crisis the U.K. is only beginning to suss out. Sport and soccer may play a role.

“When Europe is the peak of ambition in football and we compete so ferociously to get there,” former prime minister Gordon Brown recently wondered, “why in other spheres of British life do so many seek to reject it?”

A historian once wrote that, after the Second World War, “what really united Europe was football.”

Perhaps it can again.

— Washington Post