What I’m Reading: June 9, 2007
There has been much discussion recently on the impact of foreigners buying teams in England. One effect has been angry English fans who see people come in and buying their local clubs simply to make a buck. Some fans have protested by setting up their own teams (see FC United of Manchester). The Christian Science Monitor reported this week on another scheme to counter the current trend of wealthy investors buying teams. The website myfootballclub.co.uk, writes Mark Oxley, is pooling £35 investments from everyday folks in the hopes of buying a team. When they have enough money, the group will then purchase a team voted on by these small-time investors. In voting on the website, the club most fans are interested in taking over is Leeds United.
The takeover of clubs is also proving controversial in Spain. As the Guardian’s man in Spain, Sid Lowe, writes, Granada 74 chairman Carlos Marsá has essentially bought his way into the second division. Marsá has done this by purchasing another team, Ciudad de Murcia, disbanding everything about them except their place in the second division, which he promptly transferred to Granada 74. Angered officials in Granada are refusing to let the “new” club use any local stadium and so Marsá will have to move the team (not that anyone will lament its going; the club has little local support). It is, as Sid Lowe writes, “the country’s first footballing franchise” and one can only wonder what the long-term effects of such changes will be. Hopefully not as disastrous as they have been for fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, or any number of American teams moved from their homes by money-grubbing owners.
The Baltimore Colts left in the middle of the night and moved to Indianapolis, enraging many fans
Club soccer is not the only place to make money. The World Cup is among the most profitable of sporting events in the world. But as Simon Kuper pointed out this week in the Financial Times, the benefits Germany has accrued from hosting last summer’s tournament were more than monetary. The most lasting effect of the 2006 World Cup may be an improving of the German “brand.” As Kuper writes, foreigners’ opinions of Germany improved as did those of Germans about their own country. The successful hosting of the World Cup, Kuper believes, helped to put to rest outdated views of Germans as “xenophobic neo-Nazis.”One country whose soccer dealings may not be improving its national image is Iran. This week, a game between the Iranian national team and a German club team was cancelled due to “technical problems.” The match would have marked the first time an Iranian women’s team had played outside the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. The details behind this game in many ways mirror the situation Iran’s government is embroiled in over its nuclear program. Just as the government employs a policy of reaching out to, then pulling back from Westerners in relation to its nuclear program, so too did the government initially agree to allow this game to go ahead before changing its mind. Those who suffer as a result are Iran’s female players (which comes as little surprise, given how reluctant the country is to allow its women to be involved with the game, even as fans).
Iranian and German players in the first leg of what was to be a two-legged series play in Tehran last year
Salt Lake City is not often the site of political controversy. The population is largely Mormon and abides by the religion’s morals (“the closest thing to a theocracy in the West,” a native once told me). So, it probably came as a surprise to many when there was a bit of a hullabaloo at a friendly between Real Salt Lake (I apologize for that horrible name) and the Chinese national team. Some fans unfurled Tibetian and Taiwanese flags and banners of recognition for the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 at the game. They were promptly invited to leave the stadium because, according to Real Salt Lake officials, the Chinese team threatened to walk off the field if the flags weren’t removed. The flag-wavers were not best pleased. Colin Coker said, “I got kicked out of a game for waving a flag in the United States of America, and to me, that is just mind-blowing.” He plans to contact the ACLU and take the case to court. I’m betting China won’t be scheduling a rematch with Real Salt Lake next year.
Steven Wells has been writing a series of stories for the Guardian about soccer under the radar in the US. His latest piece, headlined US Soccer Punks 1, McFans 0, claims that “Independent, witty, irreverent fan culture is triumphing over Major League Soccer’s preprogrammed Disneyfied McFan experience.” He mentions a group of fans called the Sons of Ben in Philadelphia who are fans of the city’s as yet nonexistent MLS team and are creative in their support (as one has to be when one has no team to support). Independent fan clubs like Sons of Ben, Barra Brava, Section 8, etc. are to be commended for their support, but, as in his other writing on American soccer, Wells has a tendency to extrapolate too much from limited experience. Such fan clubs are changing the face of American soccer, but they are still, quite small. Their support is essential (I wish MLS would do more to encourage them rather than continue to try to promote the game to soccer moms and their kids), but has not changed American soccer as a whole. I hope that in a few years we will have the type of fan culture Wells writes about, but I have yet to see it in sustained existence today.
DC United’s Barra Brava
Grant Wahl is one of the best, if not the best, American soccer writer. This week he turned his attention to the south and wrote about his month-long soccer-watching trip through Mexico. Some highlights: Wahl being serenaded with a cheer normally reserved for Bofo Bautista (a Mexican player he resembles), meeting Mexican-Americans who have traveled to Guadalajara to watch Chivas play, and a discussion of the concept of ardido (which he translates as “rageful pride”) and how it affects the way Mexicans play soccer. Definitely worth a read.
Some quick hits to finish off:
- Wal-Mart is paying to build some soccer fields in Toledo, Ohio that will be used by the local Latino Soccer League.
- Jesse Fink writes for the Fox Sports Australia blog about black players at Barcelona and the clubs’ role in promoting racial tolerance.
- 7 of the 23 players on France’s roster at last summer’s World Cup have some connection to the tiny Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. The island, which is technically an overseas department of France, is making its debut in this year’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, as Mark Ziegler writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
- Last month’s FA Cup Final was a big deal in England. First big game at the new Wembley and all that. But it was also watched with passion in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
Fans watch the FA Cup final last month in Ouagadougou
- And for a bizarre sport, how about armwrestling? Ok, it might not be such a bizarre sport, but the fact that professional armwrestlers (yes, they do exist) are struggling in Kyrgyzstan due to the high cost of protein products such as meat dairy, and soy? Now that’s bizarre.
June 10th, 2007 01:31
Thanks for writing about what went down here in Salt Lake City!!
I am the one who shot the video, the one who brought the flags into the stadium and made the 6-4 sign that was torn down by a Chinese Official. The RCB decided to do all this; “Defect Here” sign, Mao Masks, Flags, “6-4″ sign, “We all cheer for basic human rights” chants to get into the heads of the Chinese players and throw them off their game, thus giving our boys an advantage on the pitch. Notice how we scored a goal not too long after the Chinese stopped play in the 2nd half? Did we score because we had achieved our goal by getting into their heads? Maybe, either way we got the win!
Now one of our members(Donk) decided before the match that he would take the opportunity and make a “political statement.” He asked me if he could be the one to raise the Taiwan(ROC) Flag. I had no problem with this and obliged him by letting him be the one to raise that flag. Frank(Colin), another member of The RCB was moved by the stories of the Tibetan fans who joined us at half time. He decided he would use the big Tibet Flag and help them in making a “political statement” thus getting him removed along with the Tibetan fans from the stadium. Which can be seen in the video I shot.
Yes I think the RSL staff along with the RES staff reacted poorly, but they were in over their heads. Each time RSL staff asked us to put away something we complied with their demands. Could they have handled the whole situation better? Of course they could have! If they wanted to keep things neutral they could have asked the Chinese fans to take down their flags, which offended many.
Regardless of the outcome; The RCB supports RSL and we are there to stand behind our team, through victory and strife.
My video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ut4VtEIFL0
Some pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/judgedredd76/sets/72157600328349233/
Donks Blog:
http://www.firejohnellinger.com/
RCB Home:
http://www.roguecavaliers.com/
June 10th, 2007 23:38
your my hero judge dredd, your the type of soccer fan i want to be. keep up the good work at the rsl games.
June 17th, 2007 13:50
[...] I have criticized Wells in the past for over-generalizing about American soccer based on his interactions with a few people, I think [...]
June 5th, 2008 18:13
This might be a shot in the dark, but do you know where I could find a jersey like the one that the guy is wearing in the fourth photo of the post; center horizontally and to the right; DC United black with diagonal white stripes? Thanks!