Football is dead
November 14, 2007It’s a big mess in Italy right now - well, a bigger mess than usual. During fights between football hooligans, a policeman shot a supporter hooligan, killing the guy instantly. As a result, Italy went up in fire, riots everywhere, police stations attacked, that sort of thing.
Well, that’s what you get. When you play with fire, you’re bound to get burned. Football hooliganism is a major problem in Europe, and as far as I’m concerned, the State should use all means necessary to ban this violence; violence that costs us tax payers millions and millions of Euros each year. I even advocate a complete ban on professional football matches for as long as it takes the clubs to sort out this mess - I do not wish that my tax money is used to fight this nonsense. If the safety of Dutch citizens, as well as the property rights of shop and home owners nearby stadiums cannot be guaranteed, the cause of that should be banned. As simple as that.
Football is dead anyway.
I have lost hopes on these situations in Italy, this is only the last of a long series of violence, but it has escalated much faster and violently than the past events.
The shooting has happened in a less clear situation than you write (it is not established if it was an accident, as the policeman says, or deliberated or if it happened during a fight at all), but the result was a series of unjustified riots that caused damages not only at the police, but at everything has crossed the way of those idiots (yes, even people, policemens or not).
The magistrates in charge for punishing these people have pressed ,rightly, stronger charges than ever: the caught people are accused of terrorism. Is an hypotesis that has a meaning, because the organization and speed of these attacks where really something coordinated, even supporter groups of different or rival clubs where united in this madness.
But as you say, there is need of a stronger intervention. These people caught can be closed in jail, but it hardly resolves the problem at the root.
Comment by Gianluca — November 14, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
What’s wrong with Europe ? It’s always hooligans and riots every year, and I’m not even pay attention to sports news. This sort of thing rarely happens in the US.
Comment by mikesum32 — November 18, 2007 @ 2:46 pm
Football is also the un-nerdiest sports, ever. And as entertaining as the setup process of Windows XP.
Comment by dave — November 24, 2007 @ 5:00 pm