No Enemies Among Friends?

By: chris | June 22nd, 2009

This is arguably the greatest season in Huracan’s history. With one game left in the Argentinian Clausura, Huracan sit atop the table with one point separating themselves and Velez Sarsfield. That one game happens to come against the very same Velez away. So it stands to reason Velez dropping two points in a draw yesterday and Huracan’s massive 3-0 win against Arsenal (the other…other one) set up Huracan’s most important game ever coming up in a little less than two weeks.

But the anticipation of that game was marred by crowd riots during and after the game against Arsenal in which two people have died (thus far). Riots of Huracan fans against…Huracan fans.

This is the latest and greatest step in South American football violence, and particularly that involving Argentina, and one which reads more like a bad B-list action movie than a news report. It’s so absurd that the riots spilled over to the hospital that was treating the patients, of all places, where a Wild West style shootout forced the injured to scamper untreated from the hospital.

The battle started during the halftime when the two groups were fighting in the middle of the crowds. Then the clashes reached their peak outside the Huracán’ stadium when the ‘barrabravas’ (hooligans) met again at Luna street 1500, this time with knives and fire guns. One man was shot in the heart and died while being taken to the hospital, and at least four got severely wounded and taken to the Penna hospital also in the neighbourhood of Parque de los Patricios.

Two of the woundeds were ‘rescued’ by hooligan mattes and ran away the J.M Penna Hospital before the police could identify them.

Surprisingly, the third encounter -and the most violent- between hooligans took place at the hospital’s front door. There was a shoot out in which a second victim was shot and later died while was under a surgery procedure.

And there is one very simple solution to all of this: shut it down. Call time on the season, declare it abandoned and indefinitely suspend the Apertura. Do precisely what they were forced to in Uruguay. Players and fans are having their lives threatened on a weekly basis and some are losing them in the process. And fans attacking their own is a dangerous progression for what is already a critical issue. It’s a bit insane for what is merely a game.

And while they’re putting a halt to things, maybe they should indefinitely suspend that anchor for his excessive use of makeup.