Stadium ban for Inter

[B. Goren.]

In light of what happened in the stadium, I think this is ridiculous:

http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicado...nid=59034&src=0

[brownie]

Not only ridiculous, but a disgrace! Proves once more that the UEFA has no guts.

Inter Milan should have been banned for the rest of the competition this year and kept out of it next year!

[B. Goren.]

UEFA is afraid of the famous and rich clubs. If it was another team, there is no doubt in mind that result was different.

[Jim R]

Although I've been a fan of international football for almost 30 years, I must admit that I'm still ignorant (and probably somewhat naive) about certain things. I don't understand why it is so difficult for the fans to be held responsible... and to be policed. What exactly were these "missiles" that were being thrown onto the field? I saw a brief clip on TV and couldn't really identify what they were (although it was clear they were flaming). Would it be feasible to prevent people from bringing potentially dangerous materials into a stadium? It always astonishes me to see matches televised from Europe or South America and to see these fires and plumes of smoke coming from the stands. I love the passion for the sport, but there has to be some control...

[Jazzmoose]

Someone needs to put a stop to this before the fans at Yankee stadium start taking notes...

[1ngram]

"UEFA is afraid of the famous and rich clubs."

Money doesn't talk - it swears.

Uefa IS the rich and powerful clubs. Thats where the cash is generated and they don't want the bonanza to end so they go with whatever these clubs can get away with.

Did anyone see the blatant nazi/fascist slogans among the Lazio fans at their game this week - truly sickening.

[brownie]

  Jim R said:

What exactly were these "missiles" that were being thrown onto the field? I saw a brief clip on TV and couldn't really identify what they were (although it was clear they were flaming).

Flares and bottles were thrown on the field by the hoodlums. One flare hit AC Milan goalkeeper Dida.

Dida was treated on the field while more flares and bottles were hurled...

  Quote

Did anyone see the blatant nazi/fascist slogans among the Lazio fans at their game this week - truly sickening.

These appear whenever Lazio play a game!

Many soccer matches (and this occurs in other countries than Italy) are being used by extreme-right supporters to gather in order to shout and display their fascists ideas..

[Claude]

But some hooligans are so limited intellectually that they are unaware of the political and historic meaning of their slogans.

  Quote

A Dutch Soccer Riddle: Jewish Regalia Without Jews

New York Times, 28 March 2005

AMSTERDAM - Just minutes before a high-stakes soccer game not long ago between this city's home team, Ajax, and their rivals from the southern city of Eindhoven, a chant built to a roar in the hall packed with supporters where they were serving plastic pint cups of Dutch beer.

"Jews, Jews, Jews!" thousands of voices cried.

Outside, souvenir stalls sold Israeli flags or flags with the Ajax logo, the head of the fabled Greek warrior, emblazoned inside the star of David. Fans arrived with hats, jackets and scarves embroidered with Hebrew writing. Until recently, the team's official Web site even featured the ringing tones of Hava Nagila and other Jewish songs that could be downloaded into fans' mobile phones.

Few, if any, of these people are Jewish.

"About thirty years ago, the other teams' supporters started calling us Jews because there was a history of Jews in Ajax," explained Fred Harris, a stocky man with brush-cut hair and a thick gold chain around his neck, "so we took it up as a point of pride and now it has become our identity."

For years, the team's management supported that unique identity. But over time what seemed to many people like a harmless - if peculiar - custom has taken on a more sinister tone. Fans of Ajax's biggest rivals began giving the Nazis' signature straight-arm salute or chanting "Hamas, Hamas!" to provoke Ajax supporters. Ajax games have been marred by shouts of "Jews to the gas!" or simply hissing to simulate the sound of gas escaping.

The most disturbing displays have come during games against teams from The Hague or Amsterdam's greatest rival, Rotterdam. But even Eindhoven fans get into the act: not long after the game started, a chant arose from the corner section of the city's stadium reserved for fans of the opposing team.

"Everyone who's not jumping is a Jew!" the crowd cried over and over again as thousands of people in the section jumped up and down.

Ajax games have become so charged with such anti-Semitic displays that many of the team's Jewish fans now avoid the games altogether. The offensive behavior is not one-sided: during a game against a German team late last year, a group of Ajax supporters displayed a banner that read "Jews take revenge for '40-'45," a reference to the Holocaust.

"We were probably too tolerant," said Uri Coronel, a Jew who was a member of Ajax's board in the 1990's, speaking about the management's past attitude.

Since then, the atmosphere at the games has become "unbearable," he said, adding that the fans' adoption of a Jewish identity is widely misunderstood as something positive.

A lot of Jews all over the world believe that Ajax fans are proud to call themselves Jews, but it's a kind of hooliganism," he said.

There is no clear reason why Ajax, founded in 1900, became known as a Jewish club. Amsterdam has always had the largest Jewish population in the Netherlands and the club had two Jewish presidents in the 1960's and 1970's. It has had Jewish players at various times. The club, which owns 73 percent of the listed company that owns the team, also has some Jews among its 400 members, but no greater a percentage than their representation in the city's general population. There are no Jews on the club's current board.

"The club has no real Jewish origins," said John C. Jaakke, the club's dapper president, speaking before the Eindhoven game.

Nonetheless, the club became identified in the public mind with Jews in the 1950's, and by the 1970's, opposing fans began to call Ajax supporters Jews. The supporters adopted the identity in a spirit of defiance.

Mr. Jaakke said the trend had bothered the club's management for the past 10 years, and many Jewish supporters have complained that it makes them uncomfortable. Finally, last year, during a period of national debate about the language being used in soccer stadiums, the board decided to take the opportunity to address the issue. One of the main catalysts for that debate was not anti-Semitic chants, but chants calling the well-known girlfriend of an Ajax player a prostitute.

Mr. Jaakke called a meeting with representatives of the club's two main supporters' associations last year to communicate the management's concerns. Mr. Coronel, the son of Holocaust survivors, spoke to them about how hurtful the language was to Jews. Finally, in his New Year's speech, Mr. Jaakke expressed the management's desire that fans drop their pretended Jewish identity.

"Not only Jews are bothered by this," said Mr. Jaakke, "I'm not Jewish and I hate it, too."

The club has asked an independent committee, headed by the Dutch foreign minister, to discuss the issue and try to come up with a strategy for ending the practice. Mr. Jaakke said there had been some suggestion that fans substitute the word "Goden," or gods, for "Joden," or Jews, and call themselves "sons of gods," on the logic that Ajax was a sort of god.

Mr. Jaakke conceded that forcing the fans to change their behavior was a daunting task. "It's difficult for the supporters because it has become part of their identity," he said. "Many people are walking around with Jewish stars tattooed on their bodies and they're not Jewish at all."

Standing in a section behind the goal reserved for hard-core Ajax fans, the leader of the more fanatical of the teams' two supporter associations said he understood that it hurt Jews who lost family members during the war, but complained that it was the fault of other teams' fans.

"We don't say anything that hurts anyone," said the tall, sharp-featured man who would give only his first name, Henk. "Even if we stopped, they'd still call us Jews."

A cheer of "Let's go, Jews, let's go!" started up among the fans around him.

"It'll never change," he said. "It's been our identity for almost 30 years - you can't erase it." He tugged down the neck of his shirt to reveal a large light-blue star of David tattooed on his chest with the word AJAX emblazoned above it in black gothic letters.

Edited April 16, 2005 by Claude

[Jim R]

I'm no expert on stadium security- even in my own country, but I'm pretty sure glass bottles have long been illegal to bring into stadiums here. Flares... well, of course every fan NEEDS a flare when they go to a game, just in case the power goes out. Is there anything that you CAN'T bring into a soccer stadium in europe?...

[porcy62]

  brownie said:

These appear whenever Lazio play a game!

Many soccer matches (and this occurs in other countries than Italy) are being used by extreme-right supporters to gather in order to shout and display their fascists ideas..

You're right, and don't forget the racist slogan against african players.

BTW italian supporters could throw stuff like this

[Brad]

  brownie said:

Not only ridiculous, but a disgrace! Proves once more that the UEFA has no guts.

Inter Milan should have been banned for the rest of the competition this year and kept out of it next year!

I don't know what you mean this year since they're out for the rest but I agree with the rest. I was in Milan on Tuesday night and saw the whole thing on TV and couldn't believe it.

[Jim R]

Not that I condone racism, but if we just look at the state of things in terms of stadium security, can anybody help me to understand what the prospects are for improving things? I've never even been to europe, but it seems to me that there needs to be more control over what people can bring into a stadium. People getting drunk and getting into fistfights in the bleachers (or sometimes with the players, which seems to be on the increase, unfortunately) is not unusual here in the states, but you don't see people throwing large flaming objects (at least not that I've noticed)...