Fun Stuff > CHATTER
The Quadrennial Global Round-Ball Extravaganza
a pack of wolves:
--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 12 Jun 2010, 10:05 ---Seriously though, can we? You really don't think it is dreadful to be crassly enjoying a corporate-sponsored bread and circuses event that has caused suffering to thousands of people? By supporting the World Cup uncritically and 'just talking about sport', you are basically saying to the SA authorties, and everyone else, that this behaviour is absolutely normal and fine. You're shitting on real fucking living people who are having their lives destroyed for the sake of a glorified playground game. I'm sorry you don't want to think about that, but I don't think you can somehow claim that I'm being some sort of deliberately obtuse fly in the ointment just because I care about other members of the human race!
--- End quote ---
Crassly enjoying is stretching it. One of the grand tragedies of football is that the very people who find it most important are the same ones who get shat on by it. One article I read about a community of people who'd been promised improvements to their village that never materialised and had their entire community covered in dust due to nobody feeling it worthwhile to even tarmac the road still bought tickets to matches when they could scrape the money together. Football's a weird split between largely working class fans and (in some countries) large companies who profit from what are basically (or at least should be) community institutions. So sometimes you get those beautiful acts of resistance to the whole affair like FC United Of Manchester or AFC Wimbledon, and on the other hand there's the World Cup resulting in people getting bumped off for knowing about corruption in stadium building, Arsenal fleecing its fans or the haggard face of the Portsmouth fan I saw giving a talk about the destruction of his club by owners who couldn't care less.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about the really horrible shit that's been going down of course, but talking about all of that and still enjoying the football is sort of the point for me. I don't think it's an insult to watch the games because of what's been done to people in South Africa since that's exactly what a good number of those people who got done over will be doing.
StaedlerMars:
ouch. that must have been painful.
KvP:
My it is such a good day for US DOMINATION
BP GO HOME
JD:
These things were really annoying.
BlahBlah:
I have Argentina in the office sweep, so hopefully I'll be winning at least a tenner.
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