Bread and Circuses – FIFA style

Posted on | July 22, 2007 | Comments Off

The Chilean spin doctors have been out in full force the last 48 hours in preparation for today’s game with Austria. Already we’ve seen some pretty funny double talk coming from the fans and the Chilean team officials. Its been quite entertaining.

Best all-round comment comes from delegate Harold Mayne-Nicholls from the team who first apologised for their behaviour. He capped it off with a piece of ironic humour:

“…police of Toronto did not act as our polices used to react with people just playing a football game.”

Well thank god for that!

There was also a wonderful Monty Pythonesque sense of timing:

While the coach Jose Sulantay was giving an interview to reporters during a press conference, explaining his players emotions “The coaching staff tried to calm them down, but they were upset with the ref and the red cards”, the post-game brawl broke out at the team bus. Later the Mayne-Nicholls said, with a straight face, no, no the team was relaxed and happy, not in anyway aggressive while in their dressing room. hmmm….

Oh so much baffle-gab, so little time.

After the brawl, Canadian Press’s Nathan Denette who was an eye witness stated:

All of a sudden, we looked over and there was a big brawl that breaks out between four or five people,

Next thing you know, the bus just unloads and there’s eight, 10 players come off the bus and there’s just fists flying everywhere, between the cops, the security guards, a couple of ladies were involved that were security.

It looked like a big dogfight. People throwing fists and cops with their billy clubs out and then all of a sudden it got out of control and a police officer grabbed his Taser gun and Tasered someone – I don’t know if he was a player or if he was part of the team. As soon as that happened, it got even worse.

The bus was parked at the side of the stadium, where a large fence kept hundreds of angry, chanting fans from getting closer. A tow truck arrived later to take the damaged team bus away.

We heard this big bang . . . it was just commotion after commotion after commotion, Some of the players were trying to get players back on the bus. But some were furious they were trying to get back off the bus. And then they opened up the windows on the bus and were throwing things at the officers. And then all of sudden, they were trying to grab them from the inside of the bus. And it just escalated.

It is never, never, never a good idea to chuck stuff at the cops. Add this to the large group of Chilean fans who were egging this on and you have a recipe for disaster.

Nomination for the best melodramatic moment:

“They hit me with an electrical current and I fainted,” player Isaias Perralta told Chilean media. “When I regained consciousness, I saw 10 police officers were hitting me and throwing acid in my face.”

Don’t know about any other police force, but here in Canada, acid isn’t part of the required equipment. The tasering must have hurt like hell, no doubt, but there was no acid throwing. He might have gotten pepper spray on his face, again painful, but cut the crap – 10 cops weren’t throwing acid on him.

Another reoccuring statement has me in stiches – these players are just kids. Nope sorry, at 19 and 20 years of age, many are playing professionally. They are strong, fast young men. They are young adults, not kids by any stretch of the imagination. A comparision is being made about the oversized cops vs little kids – have you seen a lot of Toronto’s police? Some have the biggest pot bellies I’ve ever seen. In terms of physical fitness, my odds are on the players.

The tale keeps shifting with the wind. What is clear to me, Chile is setting the stage for today’s game. Complete mental intimidation of the security forces, police, politicians and gaming officials. If they lose, then its not their fault, everyone was against them. Chile is going for the win through the court of public opinion, sportsmanship be damned.

What worries me most, is the behaviour of the fans. They will arrive loaded for trouble. It won’t surprise me if they attempt to provoke the police. They were unruly and angry on Thursday night – their tempers will not have cooled off. People need to stop and think for a moment. Its a game, not life and death. There will be many other games, well reffed and badly called ..

Angry abusive fans, angry, hot-tempered players – not a good mix.

Have patience, today is the last day … not much more left. I’ll return to my usual silliness this week.

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