Post by QPR Report on Apr 18, 2009 22:03:42 GMT
From Patrick Collins/Daily Mail
Flavio Briatore understands top-line sport. Last month, the managing director of the Renault Formula One team criticised the rule changes in motor-racing. 'We need stability,' he said. Last week, he scoffed at the unexpected success of Jenson Button. 'I don't know how we can say we have credibility,' he declared. Now I wouldn't know about F1. But for the past 18 months the man who prizes stability and credibility has been chairman of QPR. In that time, they have employed four managers and two caretaker managers. You may think he deserves to be taken seriously. On the other hand . . .
www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1171763/Surely-footballs-bigotry.html
Also Collins/Mail comments on Fan Bigotry
Surely football's had enough of this bigotry
The match had been over for an hour or two and the five men had spent the time in a pub near Stamford Bridge.
When they boarded the District Line Tube they were foolish with drink. One of them, a big man in his late 40s, produced a mobile phone and pressed the ringtone
The phone crackled out a sad little chant about a homosexual liaison between two Liverpool footballers. The man's friends, Chelsea fans of similar age and build, thought it the funniest thing they had ever heard.
They insisted that he play it again and again. There were children in the carriage, and a small group of elderly women, but their presence did not discourage the dullards.
The rest of us sat in squirming silence. We did not protest, since that would have taken courage we did not possess. Instead, we left the train at the first opportunity while the singers bawled out yet another chorus.
That cameo took place last Saturday evening in the wake of Chelsea's victory over Bolton. I have no idea if the squalid ditty was delivered on Tuesday, when Liverpool paid their Champions League visit to Stamford Bridge, although I am told that there were some rehearsed chants of 'Murderers!', and fingers pointed at Liverpool fans for their part in the horror of Heysel.
Now, all this may suggest that Chelsea have a monopoly of idiocy. Not so. In the past week, we have remembered the tragedy which befell an earlier generation of Liverpool followers.
And while our profound and instinctive sympathies go out to the victims of Hillsborough, we are aware that the modern club is cursed by a poisonous minority of fans who screech chants about the Munich disaster whenever Manchester United go to Anfield.
It is the kind of depravity which is matched only by the United fans' cruel treatment of Arsene Wenger or their racist abuse of a current Arsenal player, with vile references to his mother and his allegedly primitive status.
Which, in turn, finds its echo in Arsenal's homophobic taunts aimed at a certain Chelsea defender, or Tottenham's slack-jawed jibes at Sol Campbell, or the vile insults which Aston Villa supporters aimed at Harry Redknapp, or . . . And on we go, remorselessly, despicably.
Campbell himself expressed it thus: 'The only way you can stop it from happening is by taking points from clubs. That's the only way you can stop fans' abuse of that kind . . you don't get that in tennis, rugby, cricket or athletics, it's just not accepted. But football seems to think it can keep going without getting checked.'
Of course, it does, and for several depressing reasons. Television, the medium which sustains the phenomenon, is almost entirely uncritical. The BBC is woefully bland while Sky TV - which owes its existence to the Premier League - has a strong vested interest in ensuring that a squeaky-clean package is presented to subscribers.
Hence, offensive chants are rendered inaudible, while a hostile word rarely escapes from its sanitised sofas.
There is also a disturbing appetite for public humiliation. Currently, some of our most popular television shows are 'reality' programmes, which involve the ritual humiliation of aspiring entertainers, or Sir Alan Sugar on an unattractive ego-trip, bullying the deluded inadequates who strive to become his Apprentice.
Football embraces this gratuitous nastiness and combines it with its own brand of clumping incompetence. Stewarding inside grounds is, by and large, worse than useless.
Sure, there is no more standing. But fans insist on standing in seated areas, thereby blocking the general view and underlining their right to behave precisely as they choose. And clubs simply shrug and turn away, fearing the consequences of confrontation.
The Football Association, of whom we had great hopes following the departure of the insignificant Geoff Thompson, have been bitterly disappointing. Lord Triesman is proving yet another flaccid functionary, a man apparently more interested in political infighting than radical reform.
We should gladly forgo the chance of staging a World Cup if it meant that the domestic game might be administered with flair and intelligent purpose. Of the Premier League we expect nothing and are rarely disappointed.
The fact is, they rather relish the image of a prawn sandwich/Pinot Grigio clientele. Such people are prosperous, malleable and unlikely to rip up the train seats on the way home.
If they pander to them, then they believe they can justify ignoring the bigots who bellow mindless filth and drag a marvellous game through the gutter.
A few days ago, Nick Cusack, a senior executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, disturbed this cosy consensus by threatening a players' strike if governing bodies fail to crack down more heavily on racist and homophobic abuse.
A former pro, Cusack said that insults aimed at professional footballers were no longer acceptable. Deriding the token gestures of FIFA and UEFA, he said that obscene language and intimidation were 'very much alive' at English grounds.
And he added: 'Players have always been subjected to criticism but it is my view that the kind of no-holds-barred lambasting has now gone too far.'
I share that view. Like Sol Campbell, I wonder why other major sports can remain largely free from sordid abuse while football seems to embrace it.
The sound of sport should be urgent, passionate, vibrant, committed. Instead, for far too many and far too often, the sound of football is the wail of befuddled bigots on the District Line.
Flavio Briatore understands top-line sport. Last month, the managing director of the Renault Formula One team criticised the rule changes in motor-racing. 'We need stability,' he said. Last week, he scoffed at the unexpected success of Jenson Button. 'I don't know how we can say we have credibility,' he declared. Now I wouldn't know about F1. But for the past 18 months the man who prizes stability and credibility has been chairman of QPR. In that time, they have employed four managers and two caretaker managers. You may think he deserves to be taken seriously. On the other hand . . .
www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1171763/Surely-footballs-bigotry.html
Also Collins/Mail comments on Fan Bigotry
Surely football's had enough of this bigotry
The match had been over for an hour or two and the five men had spent the time in a pub near Stamford Bridge.
When they boarded the District Line Tube they were foolish with drink. One of them, a big man in his late 40s, produced a mobile phone and pressed the ringtone
The phone crackled out a sad little chant about a homosexual liaison between two Liverpool footballers. The man's friends, Chelsea fans of similar age and build, thought it the funniest thing they had ever heard.
They insisted that he play it again and again. There were children in the carriage, and a small group of elderly women, but their presence did not discourage the dullards.
The rest of us sat in squirming silence. We did not protest, since that would have taken courage we did not possess. Instead, we left the train at the first opportunity while the singers bawled out yet another chorus.
That cameo took place last Saturday evening in the wake of Chelsea's victory over Bolton. I have no idea if the squalid ditty was delivered on Tuesday, when Liverpool paid their Champions League visit to Stamford Bridge, although I am told that there were some rehearsed chants of 'Murderers!', and fingers pointed at Liverpool fans for their part in the horror of Heysel.
Now, all this may suggest that Chelsea have a monopoly of idiocy. Not so. In the past week, we have remembered the tragedy which befell an earlier generation of Liverpool followers.
And while our profound and instinctive sympathies go out to the victims of Hillsborough, we are aware that the modern club is cursed by a poisonous minority of fans who screech chants about the Munich disaster whenever Manchester United go to Anfield.
It is the kind of depravity which is matched only by the United fans' cruel treatment of Arsene Wenger or their racist abuse of a current Arsenal player, with vile references to his mother and his allegedly primitive status.
Which, in turn, finds its echo in Arsenal's homophobic taunts aimed at a certain Chelsea defender, or Tottenham's slack-jawed jibes at Sol Campbell, or the vile insults which Aston Villa supporters aimed at Harry Redknapp, or . . . And on we go, remorselessly, despicably.
Campbell himself expressed it thus: 'The only way you can stop it from happening is by taking points from clubs. That's the only way you can stop fans' abuse of that kind . . you don't get that in tennis, rugby, cricket or athletics, it's just not accepted. But football seems to think it can keep going without getting checked.'
Of course, it does, and for several depressing reasons. Television, the medium which sustains the phenomenon, is almost entirely uncritical. The BBC is woefully bland while Sky TV - which owes its existence to the Premier League - has a strong vested interest in ensuring that a squeaky-clean package is presented to subscribers.
Hence, offensive chants are rendered inaudible, while a hostile word rarely escapes from its sanitised sofas.
There is also a disturbing appetite for public humiliation. Currently, some of our most popular television shows are 'reality' programmes, which involve the ritual humiliation of aspiring entertainers, or Sir Alan Sugar on an unattractive ego-trip, bullying the deluded inadequates who strive to become his Apprentice.
Football embraces this gratuitous nastiness and combines it with its own brand of clumping incompetence. Stewarding inside grounds is, by and large, worse than useless.
Sure, there is no more standing. But fans insist on standing in seated areas, thereby blocking the general view and underlining their right to behave precisely as they choose. And clubs simply shrug and turn away, fearing the consequences of confrontation.
The Football Association, of whom we had great hopes following the departure of the insignificant Geoff Thompson, have been bitterly disappointing. Lord Triesman is proving yet another flaccid functionary, a man apparently more interested in political infighting than radical reform.
We should gladly forgo the chance of staging a World Cup if it meant that the domestic game might be administered with flair and intelligent purpose. Of the Premier League we expect nothing and are rarely disappointed.
The fact is, they rather relish the image of a prawn sandwich/Pinot Grigio clientele. Such people are prosperous, malleable and unlikely to rip up the train seats on the way home.
If they pander to them, then they believe they can justify ignoring the bigots who bellow mindless filth and drag a marvellous game through the gutter.
A few days ago, Nick Cusack, a senior executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, disturbed this cosy consensus by threatening a players' strike if governing bodies fail to crack down more heavily on racist and homophobic abuse.
A former pro, Cusack said that insults aimed at professional footballers were no longer acceptable. Deriding the token gestures of FIFA and UEFA, he said that obscene language and intimidation were 'very much alive' at English grounds.
And he added: 'Players have always been subjected to criticism but it is my view that the kind of no-holds-barred lambasting has now gone too far.'
I share that view. Like Sol Campbell, I wonder why other major sports can remain largely free from sordid abuse while football seems to embrace it.
The sound of sport should be urgent, passionate, vibrant, committed. Instead, for far too many and far too often, the sound of football is the wail of befuddled bigots on the District Line.
