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A bit too much "flare" in European soccer
September 13, 2007Flares were originally designed act as distress signals on railroads and highways -- not as industrial-strength sparklers for crazed European soccer fans.
We may owe our system of government and justice to our European brethren, but thank God that their obsession with "futbol" didn't come along with them.
Don't get me wrong, we have our problems with crime. But, at least we keep ours out of the stadiums (well, Philadelphia and Oakland notwithstanding, of course).
Once you add hand-carried pyrotechnics and alcohol to the well-established insanity, it comes as little surprise that one of these Euro-idiots would take the opportunity to throw a lit flare at one of the players as they did yesterday.
As a matter of fact, it's become commonplace.
Type in "soccer, flares, players" into the web browser of your choice and you'll find numerous incidents and almost no retribution whatsoever.
Not to be any more ethnocentric than I must already sound, but we've gotten to the point in America where people have to go through a metal detector just to get into a high school football game.
So, how could the security people at these soccer games miss fans entering the stadium with freaking flares? Then again, "in some countries, fans light flares or even start celebratory fires in the stands, obviously dangerous practices," according to howstuffworks.com.
So obviously, no one's checking.
Don't get me wrong though. Universally, there's nothing wrong with soccer, per se.
As a matter of fact, we've got two great programs -- Midwestern State University and Rider High School, among others -- right here in town.
Thankfully though, we don't have any hooligans.
Posted by Stephen Smith at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
