Monday, December 10, 2007

It could always be worse than the Knicks

One of the things that's admittedly hilarious about American sports is that we think we know what's a truly horrible team situation. Like the Knicks. They have a terrible owner, a terrible coach, a crazy point guard, no cap space until 2087, and they had to pay a woman employee more than $11 million because of a sexual harrassment lawsuit invloving the crappy coach. And to top it all off, the owner says the coach's job is totally safe.

All of those examples scream that the Knicks are a team is in disarray. Well, sort of.

Let's go somewhere else - like Serbia for instance - where team disarray is a bit different.

Last Friday, four high-ranking team officials of the soccer club Red Star Belgrade (which sounds more like a guerilla movement than a team), were detained by authorities. And as of Sunday, they've all been sentenced to 30 days in jail - and could go away for much longer than that. So why were they detained? Well, they failed to stop a riot that left a police officer nearly dead.

During the first weekend of December at a league match at Red Star's stadium, the fans attacked a plainclothes policeman trying to film them in the stands. The policeman fired shots in the air to keep the attackers at bay, but it didn't quite work. Several fans were arrested after beating up the cop, including one charged with attempted manslaughter.

But here's the important thing to remember. This happened right in the middle of the game, and to top it all off, Red Star Belgrade is accused of letting fans bring flares into the game, which were used during the attack. But since fan violence is frequent at Serbian stadiums, Red Star Belgrade said forget about it, and just decided to keep playing while the cop was being beaten up and flares were going off. Fantastic, where I can get tickets to the next game?

Since Red Star Belgrade actually allowed fans to bring in illegal flares, and a policeman got the business, the police were naturally a tad upset when everything was over. In fact, this situation is the first time team officials have ever been detained in Serbia as a result of fan violence.

But why in God's name would Red Star Belgrade allow fans to bring flares into the stadium? Good question. And here's the answer.

The pro-government Politika daily newspaper said the riots were inspired by Red Star officials to sidetrack a police investigation into their alleged links with organized crime and murky deals in the sale of at least 15 Red Star players to foreign teams.

Well, of course. What else were they going to do? Offer free bobble-head dolls to fans? Actually tell police the truth? Please.

So in other words, the next time you're at a Knicks game, remember it could be much worse. You could have Isiah arrested at mid-court and have a flare stuck in your ear while Nate Robinson bricks another dunk.

-WCK

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess this must explain why the Knicks' owner, James Dolan, just announced that Isiah Thomas's job was safe. There' always some team worse off, way worse off!

Kevin Hayward said...

It's the policeman's fault, really, for showing up in plain clothes. If you want the respect, you've got to flash the badge and sport the uni.

Jarrett said...

How do you stop a riot? Throw a chair at it? Mace it?

Chris said...

mark it!

bringing a flare gun to my next knicks game.

Anonymous said...

The book "How Soccer Explains the World" has a whole chapter about these insane fans. They are more or less admired by the owners and are encouraged to fight. They also have been known to attack their own players if they're underperforming with bats.

Will said...

On a related note there is a band named after the soccer team called, of course, Red Star Belgrade. They sing perhaps the best song ever written about Charles Bukowski.

RandomRanting said...

Wait wait wait.

Why would it be a bad thing if Isiah was arrested?

Anonymous said...

A couple of things that the author must have not read up on. First flares at soccer games in Europe is very normal and that's not only Eastern Europe places like Italy and Spain also display flares. Now normally you don't hear of flares being used in any other way other then display, this happened to be an incident and to magnify it is absolutely naive. Should the NBA put up guard rails and block off the seats from the court because of what happened with Ron Artest in 04? Of coarse not so the same aproach should be taken here. Second, the club's officials have been found innocent and Red Star has posted this on their website but I highly doubt you would go to any lenght to actually inform yourself. Third the fans of Red Star are a firm (an organized group of fans) almost every club in Europe has a firm and some have multiple firms. Here are the fans in action if anything we as Americans should try and imitate these guys they really know how to support a team http://youtube.com/watch?v=FKO8_bE-wbw And again you don't hear of this kind of stuff often so to villanize Red Star this way shows a lack of knowledge on the subject especially the comment about the name of the club. The cop was 100% at fault going into the lions den amongst fans filming them and then expecting no confrontation.

P.S Red Star is in Second place in their respective league while the Knicks are amongst the bottom.

Unknown said...

Thats European Football im afraid.
Free Bets
Football 'hooliganism' is still rife in some areas.

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