Tunisia’s sports minister coins the term “stadium terrorism.” The FIFA representative reviewing the situation in Greece (he’ll be lucky to get out of Athens alive) calls it “unbearable that people are scared to go to a stadium.”
You never see women or children at many world soccer games. Before (on transportation to the games), during (at the games), and after (on the streets; in the pubs), the host city is on fire with drunk, rioting, gun-bearing men. Despite the measures governments have introduced (games played in empty stadia; tv blackouts; massive police presence and massive arrests; physical separation of opposing fans; targeting of known thugs and gangs) everything’s getting worse and worse and unbearably worse.
*****************
Only it isn’t unbearable. Scores die after games, and cities are torched; armed black-shirted gangs rush the pitch during the game and go after referees. So what. FIFA – a virtually all-male, ridiculously corrupt organization – will do nothing about the latest atrocity in Greece. It’s bearable. It’s all bearable. It’s all boys incorrigibly and escalatingly being boys.
And when it gets even worse – when players and referees are beaten to death during games televised all over the world – FIFA will still do nothing. Unfathomable amounts of money are being made, a lot of it by that organization’s corrupt officials. No one’s going to mess with a good thing.