Football: Curse of the Civilised World

I was sickened and appalled to see what happened in Manchester this week when Rangers fans ran riot. I cannot believe that in this day and age we still allow this kind of thing to go on. Police estimate that the trouble was caused by around 200 "fans" who had been drinking all day and went bananas when a giant screen decided not to work. This meant that these people who did not have tickets for the game could not watch the game and so they decided to destroy the place and take their frustrations out on the police and engineers.

There are several things that make me really angry about this. Firstly is that people in what is supposed to be a civilised country feel the need to revert to barbarism over the particular sport of football. What is it about football that turns human beings into scumbags willing to do violence against their fellow human beings. Are they scumbags already and football just gives them an opportunity or is football the cause? You don't see this kind of violence at cricket, rugby or tennis matches. You don't see this kind of violence in US sports. Football on the other hand goes hand in hand with violence the world over. The violence I think is part of a sport that has become blackened for decades now. The problem is the example set by those who play it and those who run it.

Football is not a sport anymore and has not been for a while now. It is a business. It is all about the money, lots of it and it is reportedly rife with corruption as a result. There is no discipline. There are no other sports where officials, referees, umpires are questioned or confronted in the way they are in football. Players cheat to win. They look for opportunities to dive in situations that are advantageous and are heralded for doing so. They spit and swear on pitch at each other, the referee and sometimes the fans. Many of them lead lives off the pitch which are no better than they are on the pitch but they are idolised by millions. Most do little to contribute to society in any way despite their constantly reported wealth and status. This being so, I think it is no wonder that football attracts the very bottom end of society amongst its supporters.

The next thing that winds me up is that I am going to presume that the city of Manchester will be picking up the bill for all the damage and mess that was left after the match was over. I saw the news reports after the match and in the morning and the mess was disgusting. If it was the city of Manchester who picked up the bill, as a local tax payer in Manchester I would be questioning why I am paying for swine to ruin my city at my expense. I would suggest that the city demands compensation from the Rangers FC for the tidy-up and that Rangers should also be banned from all European competitions for at least a couple of years.

Further to this and having seen the mess that was made in Germany at the last World Cup, I also think we need to deter any move by our government to even entertain the idea of staging any international competitions in the UK. I don't see why civilised people should have to pay for animals to enjoy themselves by destroying civilisation. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I would not invite or pay for the privilege of having someone enter my house and misuse or destroy it so I don't see how we can allow it to happen in our streets and civic areas. There is a very small number of people who would benefit greatly if football were to come home, but the misery it could potentially bring to the wider communities it will effect would make any such proposals unethical.

Until these members of society can learn to behave themselves, anything that entertains them must be restricted. These are people who have not grown up properly. That being so, if they want to behave like children and persist in doing so then we need to treat them like children. We need to teach them that it is not acceptable to behave like this and if you do then there will be consequences. To ignore this is to live in fear.