The Not So Beautiful Game

By: Bob | November 16th, 2006

In a week in which we got to see my beloved Snow Leopards of Kazakhstan get hammered by Portugal and San Marino scored a Pyrrhic victory by losing to Ireland by only five goals, there has been some off the field news that has been far uglier than what we have witnessed on the pitch.

Let’s start in England where police are investigating a series of letters that were sent to Reading’s training ground. No, these weren’t the letters I have been sending imploring Bobby Convey to cut his greasy mane, but rather death threats made against Ibrahima Sonko and Stephen Hunt. Their crime? They were both involved in incidents in which Chelsea keepers Petr Cech and Carlo Cudicini were hurt a few weeks back. Chelsea officials have condemned the letters and handwriting analysis shows they did not come from Jose Mourinho.

Moving on to Argentina, which has seen its own share of death threats and joy. The Argentina Football Association announced this week that it is banning away fans for the rest of the First Division season. The move comes after a series of fan-related violence that has led to the suspension of three matches since August. Whether or not the away fan ban will make a difference in a country where fans have been known to threaten their own team remains to be seen.

There’s news from Europe today that that the Belgium Football Federation has asked UEFA to investigate allegations that a Poland player was offered a bribe ahead of yesterday’s Euro 2008 qualifier. Poland won the match 1-0, much to the dismay of the person who allegedly offered Poland defender Jacek Bak $13,000 to take down a Belgium player in the penalty area. I have a suspicion it was probably one of those chain saw carrying hooligans who offered up the bribe and it might explain that keeper goal from a few months back.

Finally, there were the predictable fan clashes yesterday before the England-Netherlands match and during the Russia-Macedonia tilt. Throw in some destructive plans for the South Africa World Cup and you can see why the news this week has been a bit hard to swallow.