Hooliganism Horrors

In class on Thursday we had a guess speaker who was a citizen from England named Dr. Meek. Personally, I thought the presentation that Dr. Meek gave the class was exceptionally great and gave a lot of insight into the game of soccer in the international arena. The main focus of his presentation was how hooliganism effects the game of soccer and its presence it still has in today's game.

One of the most interesting things that Dr. Meek mentioned in his presentation would be the effect of racism that is still current in the game of soccer internationally. He stated that in the game of soccer in many countries around the world that racism plays a factor in soccer games even though it is the 21st century. He said that in his home country of England they have just made recent reforms to seclude the hooligans out of the stadium or even near the premises after causing incidents in the arena. It makes sense that the hooligans that cause the trouble in the stands are the same fans chanting the racist remarks toward the black soccer players. But the main problem I have with this situation in international soccer is how is it possible that a majority of international arena's allow this hooliganism to occur and not take actions of zero tolerance such as England has?

Even though I am not efficiently familiar with the current times of international soccer venues I would venture to take a guess that many institutions allow this hooliganism to occur is because it is such a strong part of the soccer culture. One scenario that I can compare hooliganism in international soccer right here in the U.S. would be the game of hockey. In hockey fights break out between players on the ice almost every game and the only thing that happens is a couple minute penalty time in the penalty box. This violence is natural to the game of hockey and would be unthinkable in any other sport such as football or basketball.

However, the level of racism in the game of soccer is too high when such situations effect the players directly on the field. Dr. Meek showed a video of a game being played where a black soccer player was getting ready for a penalty kick and the fans were chanting monkey grunts and even throwing bananas right next to him on the soccer field. This behavior should not be accepted by any soccer institution and countries should reconsider their tolerance rules on hooliganism.