Swobodin v Brně

Few weeks left before the beginning of the World Cup, and, as may a reader notice, I give absolutely no importance to soccer. I don’t know who will participate, which team will play against which other, etc. The only thing I know is that it will start in Germany in June.
However, (I speak about this for the first time), should you believe it or not, I used to be a big soccer fan! Yes, watching all the matches, analyzing them, playing almost every evening, … I didn’t have a Tunisian particular team, I only used to support the national team, Ajax, Inter and Real Madrid, until I totally changed my mind.
It was in 1998, and like everybody here, I was supporting the Tunisian team, in spite of bad results in African cup, against Australia and former Yugoslavia. Well, the last match I saw till now was France - Brazil. Then I realized, what was I supporting soccer for? Players get paid and lose, many do not even know how to tell a right sentence, almost none of them can correctly sing the National Anthem; they only run, push and kick the ball and earn cash within an industry managed by multinational companies, and the one who the bear the fees is me, simple and naive supporter who would do everything for his team. You can tell me that they deserve the money for they make a great effort during the 90 minutes of the match and they risk their health, well, give me a small part of this money and I will run in the stadium for 90 minutes like a clown, falling and turning over till my hands and feet get broken. I don’t care: I’m rich!
I still don’t regret the decision of throwing soccer out of my life; ok, soccer is a dream for the youth of the favela’s lumpenproletariat, it promotes tolerance and fights against racism, it units people and so on (yeah, Alice’s dreamland), but let’s see the real side:
There are certainly players who used to live in poverty, get rich thanks to soccer and spend their money for good causes like helping disadvantaged children and financing the reconstruction of their childhood cities, but how many? They are known anyway; but nobody talks of those who built a corruption empire or the ones who got bankrupt after they spent their fortunes in casinos and luxurious yachts. Well, let’s forget about those ones, they don’t harm me after all.
Have you ever seen in TV a naked Milan’s supporter whose the body is a a tattoo artwork of Mussolini’s face and Hitler’s crosses? Do you remember the English hooligans who, after having a good drink, make a disaster wherever they go? How about the famous war between Honduras and El Salvador because a soccer match? Venerating soccer and making it a religion exists unfortunately in my country, where fanatics don’t hesitate in beating or even killing persons who don’t share the same “belief” with them. Again, players don’t give a care, get more money in a match than I what earn in a year and don’t denounce what’s happening. I never forget the days when I had to get back on feet because the roads near the stadium were blocked, neither when I was sitting in the bus and a crazy supporter threw a rock to the window next to me, I was lucky because “only” my hand got wounded, but I wished so much to explode his head with the rock and the glass he broke and wounded me.
This is not everything, people’s attitude makes me mad, their ideological talks, technical analysis, stupid fights, … They seem to only live for soccer; besides, newspapers don’t disappoint them, filling the half of their contents with crap, instead of focusing of more serious topics.
Must I really be tolerant with this new religion? Do I have to support the so called national team which is supposed to “represent” my country whereas it has been and is always making scandals deceiving millions of dreamers and catching the public budgets? Wasn’t forgetting about soccer one of the most right decisions I have token?

This entry was posted on Monday, May 29th, 2006 at 9:16 am and is filed under General, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.