Flip off the fans and you might get sued or beaten up

By: Bob | April 9th, 2007

In this crazy media world of ours if something happens in more than one place it is likely to be labeled an epidemic. That being the case, I am here to report that an epidemic is spreading throughout the football world. With each passing day more and more players – from Bulgaria to China – are showing fans their appreciation by lifting up their middle fingers as a salute. And with each passing day, fans are finding new ways to object to this growing plague.

In Bulgaria, a CSKA Sofia fan group have the lawyers salivating by threatening to sue the goalkeeper of archrivals Levski Sofia. Georgi Petkov had the audacity to gesture towards the fan and to his an advertising placard after his team beat CSKA 1-0 on Saturday.

Dimitar Angelov, chairman of CSKA’s National Fan Club, told Nova TV. “I can’t tolerate gesturing to the crowd. There were women and children among us.”

Indeed, we must protect the women and children.

Meanwhile, a group of Zhejiang Lucheng fans in China decided to forgo the legal system and to take matters into their own hands after Tianjin’s Li Xingcan had the courage to flip them off because they were pelting him with rubbish while he warmed up on the pitch. It only gets more unbelievable from there:

Sunday’s Beijing Times newspaper reported that after the match, which Zhejiang lost 3-1, several thousand home fans gathered outside the Tianjin dressing room chanting “Number 14, come out! Tianjin apologise”.

“They also tried to charge in, but luckily police and security guards at the ground intercepted them,” it added.

Ground authorities opened an emergency exit to allow the players to safely board a bus and exit the stadium, but the car carrying Tianjin’s Czech coach Jozef Jarabinsky was attacked by fans, the paper said.

Speaking on attacks, a group of supports of the Brazilian club Corinthians broke into the club’s training grounds on Friday and threw soap powder at the players in a symbolic act to help clean up the club. How clever.

It is an epidemic, folks.