The Blanco Video: When the Censorship Becomes the Story

By: Laurie | July 11th, 2008

A couple of days ago I posted this video that shows Chicago Fire Designated Player Cuauhtemoc Blanco punching DC United player Clyde Simms in the gut in a US Open Cup game. Blanco received a red card for the incident, then allegedly headbutted a DC United employee who was trying to get him to leave the sidelines. And according to rumors and some “I was there” posts on BigSoccer, there may or may not have been more incidents on the way to (or in) the locker room.

For us at The Offside, it was no big deal. Just one more incident of a player losing it. We even have a tag for events like these: Players Behaving Badly.

Within hours, though, MLS had gotten YouTube to take this video down. (That’s what the notice said. Something like “Taken down by MLS due to copyright violations.”)

Here’s the thing, though. As Dave over at Dave’s Football Blog pointed out, this was not an MLS event. This was a US Open Cup game.

The US Open Cup is run by US Soccer. MLS has no role in it as far as I can tell, other than sending eight teams. So what is MLS doing having this video taken down, other than protecting the image of one of its cash cow superstar players, who’s known to have some anger management issues?

The oddest part is that because the tournament isn’t run by MLS, MLS will probably issue no sanctions against Blanco. The worst Blanco could face could be a lifetime US Open Cup ban. The guy’s what, 35? Lifetime ban. Woohoo. I’ll bet he’s shaking in his boots.

Good news for fans of truth and enemies of censorship. Dave has found and reposted the video. Let’s see how long this one stays up. He also has a copy on his computer, which he’s apparently planning to keep reposting in the event of more censorship.

As one of Dave’s commenters says: “Stick it to the man, Dave!”

Amen.

(I never knew I had such a subversive streak until I started blogging.)

More interesting takes on the incident from Bill Archer (who has some particularly insightful thoughts on this video vs. standard MLS policy) and Soccer by Ives, who has some videos of previous Blanco incidents.

UPDATE: Soccer by Ives gives this explanation of events:

According to an MLS source, a league employee mistakenly requested that the videos be taken down from YouTube. Apparently the mix-up occurred because someone thought it was an MLS match, when it wasn’t.

Show of hands from everybody who believes this is the full, true story.

Anybody?