Playing with Fire Podcast

Fans Killing Fans

Steve Stockerman wrote, ‘Manuel Riacuteos, a 31 year old father of two, stepped in harm’s way on the street outside the stadium after a game of his Deportivo de La Coruna team. Three members of his team’s radical fan club, Ultras as they are called in Spain, were beating a 13-year-old boy who dared wear the jersey of the rival team. Riacuteos intervened and was thanked by a powerful flying karate kick in the chest that collapsed his lung and liver. He died on the way to the hospital.’

Last month, ‘the Greek soccer league was preparing nervously for another weekend of play as the authorities wrestled with the seemingly intractable problem of violent fans. The country’s stadiums reopened last Sunday following a two-week ban on team sports imposed after the death of a 25-year-old fan in a brawl between rival soccer hooligans last month. (Niki Kitsantonis April 19, 2007)

These are not isolated incidents.The extreme violence displayed by fans at sporting events around the world indicates that there is a serious problem affecting all of society. Sport as a means for developing vice or virtue is not the exclusive domain of athletes as we can see by the martyrdom of Manuel Riacuteos. ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friend’ (Jn 15:13). This good man lost his life because too many people in our society have been poorly formed and therefore lack the ethics, values, and morals necessary to live a good life. Although these irrational sports fans are a symptom of the broader societal issues of narcissism, relativism, and materialism, we must work to change the current culture of sport from vice to virtue. Isn’t it time to reclaim the game before one more good person is killed?