LONDON — How quickly can soccer turn from the Beautiful Game to the Ugly Game?
England jailed a thug on Monday after he ran onto the field and hit the opposing team's goalie, Chris Kirkland of Sheffield Wednesday, in the face with both hands. The assailant turned out to be a 21-year-old hooligan who was supposedly banned from attending games, and he attributed his actions to the three-quarters of a liter of vodka, the 7 to 10 pints of cider and the several glasses of beer that he remembered consuming before the game.
This follower of Leeds United was so well known for previous violence that his profile was all over the Internet within minutes of the assault Friday. Justice was swift; he was sentenced to 16 weeks' imprisonment just as soon as court resumed after the weekend break in Sheffield.
The magistrate left no doubt that society would not tolerate the revival of so-called soccer hooliganism in England after being outlawed almost 20 years ago.
But that the attack happened at all is disturbing enough, as was the fact that the assailant, Aaron Cawley, was just one of a number of young men who easily ran onto the playing field during the derby match between Sheffield and Leeds.
The goalmouth where the attack took place is in front of the Leppings Lane stand where 96 Liverpool fans died in 1989 during an F.A. Cup match, many of them crushed against steel fencing used to prevent spectators from accessing the field. As a consequence of that tragedy, British stadiums are no longer fenced in.
Even before the assault on Kirkland, it has been an awful October so far around the sport.
Just over a week ago, an African Cup of Nations game between Senegal and Ivory Coast had to be abandoned when Senegalese supporters, angry that their team was losing, lit fires, stoned the players and began tearing apart the seating.
In the same week, Serbian fanatics racially abused black English players during an Under-21 contest. The Football Association of Serbia claimed that none of its fans was responsible, but the evidence is out there on YouTube, and UEFA, the European soccer authority, is dragging its heels on reacting to the behavior.
UEFA claims it needs until the middle of November to decide what punishment, if any, is appropriate for racial intimidation on a mass scale toward a visiting team.
While that festers, players from a multitude of nations who earn their living with English clubs were asked to take part in a pre-match show of unity. All players were invited to wear a T-shirt proclaiming "One Game, One Community." About 30 star players, many of them black, refused to do it. They believe that campaign groups like Kick It Out and Show Racism the Red Card are not strong enough to press FIFA and UEFA into real and progressive action against racism in and around the global game.
Soccer officials are hard-pressed. The return of hooliganism in an English stadium, the slow UEFA response to Serbia and the outburst of lawlessness in Senegal all came at once.
At the same time, a police official in Dortmund, Germany, on Saturday admitted that having 1,200 officers at his disposal was not sufficient to prevent extensive fighting before, during and after the 141st Ruhr derby between two close neighbors, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke.
A vibrant soccer contest became the excuse for premeditated violence on the streets and in the stadium. It was, in the words of the police director, Michael Stein, the worst violence and aggression on his watch in years.
More police officers than fans had to be treated in hospital, and presumably in due course the courts will decide what is to be done with the 163 Schalke and 17 Dortmund fans arrested at the scene.
This is sport? It is, alas, in some places a corrupted sport. In China, in Europe and in the Americas, the beauty is so easily contaminated.
That is why police forces, Interpol and local officers, are involved in tracking the villains. But even in small communities, like in Cyprus, violence can be mindless.
On Sunday, a Colombian striker, Ricardo Laborde, was on the ground, being treated for an injury, when a firecracker exploded within a few inches of his face and the face of a trainer.
Neither was seriously hurt. Laborde played on for Anorthosis Famagusta against visiting Omonia Nicosia. But how did anyone get into the stadium with a weapon as potentially dangerous as a firecracker?
Soccer at the professional level is a business. It may alienate some supporters that they are living the recession while players come and go at their clubs, for seemingly recession-proof salaries.
Nevertheless, the Leeds lout jailed Monday had enough money to get himself drunk, to travel many miles and to evade orders he be banished from the game. Such orders may be particularly unenforceable in England, where there is no requirement to carry identity cards.
But at least on this occasion the law quickly put the transgressor behind bars. In Italy, six years after the match-fixing investigation known as Calciopoli, 14 men have just been ordered by a court to pay the Italian soccer federation compensation of €4 million, or about $5.25 million.
The two leading selectors of refereeing in 2006, Paolo Bergamo and Pierluigi Pairetto, have been hit with fines equivalent to more than a million dollars. Forget whether they can meet those fines or will ever have to, given the interminable appeals procedure. How can this be seen as justice, that a soccer federation that was responsible for hiring them should be deemed the damaged party?
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