While we get heated in our sports rivalries at least for the most part we have left behind racism and bigotry in our rivalries. There are the occasional anti-Mormon rhetoric about the Jazz but for the most part hatred is directed towards the players for their dirty play than for their ethnic or religious background. Unfortunately it seems like this isn't the case with soccer. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/...t-neo-nazis-use-soccer-to-preach-hitlers-hate Seven decades after Holocaust, neo-Nazis use soccer to preach Hitler's hate Nearly seven decades after the Holocaust, young soccer fans in Germany have become targets of neo-Nazis who preach the hatred of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. “Again and again we see neo-Nazi presence in [sports] fan clubs and my office asks that action be taken against them,” said Winfriede Schreiber, head of the Brandenburg branch of the German government’s intelligence service. “For example, we see the fan club in [the German city] Cottbus consisting of a lot of neo-Nazis. We asked the football club to do something about this.” At her office in Brandenburg, a state in eastern Germany, Schreiber monitors extremism and reports evidence of hate crimes to prosecutors. “The neo-Nazis now look like everyone else,” Schreiber said. “Gone are the jackboots and black leather jackets that used to make it easy to expose them. Now they blend into the local population.” According to Schreiber, the neo-Nazis subscribe to Hitler’s views and extol his one-time deputy, Rudolf Hess. “The danger the neo-Nazis pose is that they are against democracy and they work to alienate young people from democracy,” she said. “They have made ‘Juden’ [Jews] a curse word even if there are no Jews playing on the soccer field.” Jens Teschke, a spokesman for Germany's interior ministry, which is responsible for domestic security, said neo-Nazi activities are visible throughout Germany, but strongest in the country's east. “Neo-Nazis take young soccer fans to homes built in the Nazi times as holiday retreats for elite members of Hitler’s party,” Teschke said. “They laud the Nazi era and the legacy of this era.” According to Teschke, the German government launched programs in January 2011 to make soccer coaches more aware of neo-Nazi tactics. The problem is not limited to Germany. In England, fans of London-based Tottenham Hotspur -- which boasts a strong Jewish following -- have been subjected to anti-Semitic abuse for many years. In November, supporters of West Ham United "hissed on several occasions, mocking the mass execution of Jews during the Second World War," the U.K.'s Telegraph newspaper reported. "While the hissing, shamefully, is nothing new, Tottenham fans were also subjected to a chant of 'Adolf Hitler, he's coming for you.'" Only days earlier, an American college student suffered a foot-long stab wound and a punctured lung when a mob of up to 50 masked men armed with knives and baseball bats attacked Tottenham Hotspur fans before a Europa League match in Rome. Witnesses told local media that the attackers shouted "Jews, Jews" as they laid siege to the bar. "The coordinated attack ... appears to have been motivated at least in part by anti-Semitism," the Telegraph reported. The Simon Wiesenthal Center also recently highlighted the issue's growth. "The problem of anti-Semitic abuse at soccer matches which until recently has been limited to Eastern Europe, has been revived in Western Europe," it said in a report. Prime targets of anti-Semitism on the soccer field are the Makkabi teams, Jewish athletic clubs located in 15 German cities. “Every Makkabi team in Germany is confronted with anti-Semitism, as are teams with Jewish roots,” said Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Berlin, an advocacy group. Soccer coach Claudio Oppenberg, who is Jewish, said his team also faced anti-Semitism from Muslim immigrants. According to Oppenberg, who’s coached Tus Makkabi Berlin for seven years, only two members of the current team are Jewish. The rest are from North Africa and Turkey. During a game last March, Oppenberg said members of a Turkish team shouted at fellow Turks on the Makkabi team: “How can you play for these damned Jews?” The Turkish team beat the Makkabis 1-0. Oppenberg said the Turkish coach confronted him after the game and said: “We f---d you Jews.” Oppenberg filed charges with the German Football Federation and the Turkish coach was suspended for a year. “If you have racism and anti-Semitism in society, then you will have it in football too,” said Alex Feuerherdt, a soccer referee and freelance writer.
Here is another story about hatred directed towards Muslim players on an Israeli soccer team. http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/...test-clubs-recruitment-of-muslim-players?lite Hatred boils over as Israeli soccer fans protest club's recruitment of Muslim players By Paul Goldman, Producer, NBC News TEL AVIV, Israel – Hatred is boiling over in Israeli soccer. The Beitar Jerusalem club has long been known for its fans' racist chants, but the situation escalated dramatically last month after the team signed Zaur Sadayev and Gabriel Kadiev, two Muslim players from Chechnya. The most outspoken wave of hate comes from a hardcore section of supporters – known as La Familia -- who see themselves as Beitar’s real owners. “Death to the Arabs,” they yell during matches. “Beitar, pure forever,” they declare. Rocks have been thrown at players and, during a recent practice, a fan ran onto the soccer field and tried to attack one of the new Muslim players. The most shocking incident happened on Feb. 8 when the 76-year-old Beitar clubhouse -- home to the club’s trophies -- was burned to the ground. Extremist fans are suspected. After this, team management and the government decided to take a hard line. “The police are taking this very seriously,” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said. “People who would burn an office are not fans, they are dangerous criminals.” Beitar chairman Itzik Kornfein pledged to hold firm too, according to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot. “We took an important step and we’re moving forward. In the end, all the fans will understand that this is a done deal and there’s no turning back,” he said, referring to the signing of the Muslim players. “No turning back” took the form of 400 police officers and 200 private security guards sent to secure a Feb. 10 game between Beitar and the Arab-Israeli club Bnei Sakhnin. Despite the security, some Beitar fans hurled abuse about Sadayev and Kadiev as well as the Arab team. When Kadiev entered the game in the 79th minute, fans from La Familia cursed and booed him, but thousands of other supporters cheered him. On the other side, fans from Bnei Sakhnin whistled during the Israeli national anthem. Two Israeli and three Arab fans were arrested and are awaiting indictment for violent actions during the game. If anyone noticed, the game ended with a 2-2 draw.
Looking for a rooting interest in Euro soccer....friend from Scotland says I can't root for Celtic because I'm not Catholic. What does that even mean? The whole sectarian violence crap with soccer over there is nuts.
Saw that story a few days ago. Kinda made me chuckle a bit for the wrong reason. You're ****ing Jewish, and you start doing this ****. You don't remember what happened 70 years ago to your grand parents and stuff? Sorry MadMax, you can't be a Celtic fan, you get to be a Rangers fan. And they suck ass these days. Spain is pretty racist with their black guys.
That is true. I was talking to a guy who was a Protestant from Belfast who said that he rooted for Rangers and they along with a few other teams in Ireland in Scotland where a brotherhood of blue (anti-Catholic.) The same thing applies to the Celtics whose fans frequently sing anti-British Irish songs during games.
Well, thanks . Regarding the first article posted: It's regrettable that there are still undoubtedly some idiots who are neo-nazis, but the article fails to address the dimension of the problem. As you can see from Mr. Clutch's reaction, if someone who possibly has never been to Europe reads this article, they might think that it is a huge issue. In fact it is a serious issue, in Italy and Eastern Europe, but fortunately not (yet) in Germany. It is true that Neo-Nazi groups try to infiltrate the "Ultras", the hardcore fans. Usually they quickly get isolated and expelled when they try to do this, though. I would estimate that maybe 0.5 to 1 % of these "hardcore fans" have a Nazi ideology - which is 0.5 to 1 % too many, no doubt. Most football fans are either relatively apolitical or left-leaning. There are certain teams in lower leagues, like Dynamo Dresden, Hansa Rostock or Alemannia Aachen where the percentage is higher. The article is correct in saying that it is a bigger problem in East Germany. This has to do with people there not having been taught properly about how horrible the Holocaust was during the decades of communist dictatorship. It is without a doubt an issue to watch and aware of, so I am not trying to downplay it. My only point is that the percentage of people following that kind of ideology is very small - in Germany at least - which the article does not really reflect. But every incident is one too many. I don't want to see these people in or around the football stadiums (or anywhere else, for that matter) - I want them to be socially isolated, if they cannot be educated. Also, rocketsjudoka, let's not forget that, sadly, racism in soccer is a problem that affects many areas of the world. For instance, dark-skinned Egyptian goalscorer Mahmoud Abdel Razek ended his career because of racist taunts by the Arab crowd.
You're absolutely right and never said this was limited to Europe. Racism in sports used to be a problem in the US and some of the early stories about when Jackie Robinson and others broke the color barrier in major league sports are pretty disturbing. It is sad though to see those attitudes persisting in the 21st century even if it is just among a handful of fans.
typical rocketsjudoka anti-whiteman, pro Asian and other minority agenda bro it's a tiny fraction of Europe. I condemn racism, and agree that these guys are an abomination, but I don't get why you are trying to make a huge point about a tiny group of people.
What do you expect from a communistical game designed by Karl Marx to underhandedly deprive American boys of their God-given right to hit somebody on the football field? Those sissy boys just hate everyone because all they do is watch frustrated girly men running around in circles about a big field while not using their hands. Pick up the damn ball, run through some people, stiff-arm the goalie and throw the ball into the net... then you would have an OK game that wouldn't be so damn frustrating and lead to this kind of thinking. How many boys do we have who want to play football yet their mom makes them play soccer for fear of being hurt? It's a sissified game and those Europeans haven't been shown the light. You don't hate somebody because of ethnicity. You hate somebody because they are a Sooner or a Steeler.
I didn't think anyone would actually try to excuse or downplay this stuff but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Amazing. A typical littletex anti-black, pro white and other anti-minority agenda. So answer me this: You have never made a huge point about a small group of people? Mirror mirror. I seriously cannot believe you actually posted that littletex. You'd end it all quickly if you were as hard on yourself as on others.
rocketsjudoka was on a race-baiting streak this weekend. This + the racist baby smacker in the hangout.
the continent of europe is one of my favorite american colonies. you have to understand the long term effects of colonization to understand hooliganism and racism in soccer. angry visigoths are angry but i cut them some slack, i even married one of those barbarians.
