Tuesday 20th January, 2009last year, mid-January
Why can’t Spurs fans sing about Sol when Huddersfield fans can sing about the fire?
Four men have been charged with singing what is a very offensive song about Sol Campbell after a unified decision by “people in football” that things had gone “too far”.
Harry Redknapp led the charge against Spurs fans – how ironic – and he was right to do so, His comments about not being able to understand the mentality of a Father who sings a racist, homophobic and generally nasty song in front of his son is echoed throughout the land. Almost no one outside of a football ground will understand the reason why such chanting is necessary, as will a good few people inside it.
All of which is right and proper – although gives rise to interesting questions – but why was the line drawn at Sol Campbell and Spurs?
As a Bradford City fan I have this season had to sit in a football ground listening to home fans singing mocking songs about the fire of 1985 on more than one occasion – in fact I can tell you having ill advisedly sat at Huddersfield Town with the collection of supporters who sit on the river bank side closest the away fans delight in it – so why is it that no one has been arrested, cautioned, questioned, accused of behaviour likely to cause affray or any of those other laws which – rightly or wrongly – are being used against the Campbell chanters?
I’m no legal expert so I’m not able to answer that question returning to Redknapp’s bafflement at the mindset of people who would engage in such chanting and adding my own belief that some self-policing in the form of right-minded fans booing the offenders would not go amiss. After all football fans seem capable of booing almost anything else.
It seems that the Campbell chanters are guilty of committing an offence at the wrong place and the wrong time and to be made an example of – they get no sympathy from me – but how much the lessons will be learnt by fans the length of the land, and what those questions are, is debatable.
Will the police be arresting Huddersfield Town supporters in the situation out lined above? Would they have moved in against the Bradford City fans who sang songs about cockle pickers at Morecambe last year? Will they arrest the guy behind me who shouted that Barry Conlon was a useless twat and should be substituted on Saturday? Doing so would have robbed me of the satisfaction of watching him cheer though gritted teeth after he scored.
What chanting is acceptable? David James believes that anything not racist or homophobic is allowed while others would suggest it is anything legal but the morality of grown men screaming swears until faces turn red at kids barely out of their teens troubles me greatly. I would suggest the people singing songs about the fire are worse than those swearing, being racist to or homophobic towards players but I’d say they were all under line of what should be acceptable.
I wonder about football when it has to look for law and browbeating debates on manners to decide whether or not deliberate offence of these kinds are socially acceptable.
I can bet that no other fans will be arrested for ‘offensive’ chanting this season. As soon as you get politics involved in football, you’re in trouble.
The reason why Huddersfield fans won’t be punished by the police, or likewise Chelsea, West Ham or Portsmouth fans won’t be punished for singing anti-Jewish songs at Spurs fans is because you need to make a complaint. The same Pompey fans that were singing anti-Jewish songs at us made a police complaint about our songs at Sol Campbell and so the police had to act, apparently. We never complain about the abuse we get from grounds around the country. Maybe that’s how we are.
Interesting points but note the chanting while abusive was NOT racist or homophobic. Let’s see the case brought against those who pleaded not guilty and the result before jumping to conclusions.
The Police won’t arrest any Huddersfield fans because they don’t have the resources or the inclination.
That, in itself, is regrettable, but I think any progress made towards stamping out offensive chanting should be applauded, not criticised.
Firstly, great article. I cannot believe the huge media spotlight that has been placed upon the men and indeed boys charged. I agree that the song is homophobic, but is in no way racist.
I am a Spurs fan and what Campbell did to us was totally unacceptable and yes he should expect still some level of chanting against him, but this song does go too far.
Let us not forget at the time of Campbells move to the club down the road, Spurs were in trouble and he was the star in a poor team. To leave a club he said he loved, he was captain of, was a trainee at and also a week before said he would never leave, to then leave for free when he was worth upwards of £15 millon is unbelieveable. Also note he has never apologised for this.
Imagine you Liverpool fans Gerrard going to United for free, or Chelsea fans Lampard or Terry joining Spurs for free. How would you react? Quite angrily I would hazard a guess!
Also you make a point about other fans singing songs which are indeed just as bad if not worse, for example the abuse Spurs get against them, ‘Spurs are on the way to Auschwitz’, or the songs sang against Man United about the Munich air disaster. At least have a level playing field! Why are these offences not punished? Its just hypocritical and pointless.
Every club has songs their supporters should not sing but do, its unfortunately just part of the game.
How long ago was your experience? I know for a fact anyone singing about the fire at a Huddersfield v Bradford game would be given extremely short shrift. That tragedy probably could have happened to any club at that time as we all had knackered old wooden stands. I’ve almost been in tears myself reading about what happened on that fateful day.
Why cant spurs fans sing about sol .when leeds fans can sing about planes crashing.chelsea fans can mimic gas chambers with thier hissing. wayne rooneys brother can sing about mancs being murdered on you tube. and almistost every club supporters sing thier anti rival chants every weekend . because cry baby campbells feelings have been hurt. the complete way we support our teams the songs sung on the terraces right or wrong will now be scrutinised.by the powers that be. turning now our national sport into a big brother type event .what can only be bad for the game.now every remark made will be looked at .a SAD way forward
Nail and Head……..
Fantastic article and spot on. From a spurs fans point of view the song about Sol Campbell was scapegoated and blown stupidly out of proportion. Countless times where west ham fans have made hissing noises,referring to Jews and the holocaust,directed at our large Jewish following have been completely ignored. Also the example used in article is widely ignored and I cannot see why the FA should punish spurs fans and turn a blind eye to everyone else.
Good article and frames the argument well.
Frankly, when someone did what Sol Campbell did to Tottenham, and the fans who paid his wages for years have no other recourse while he picks up 50-100k a week, I am amazed he and his fellow professionals have the gall to complain.
For what it is worth, the Campbell chants were never racist and although they used gay slurs, there is no evidence he is actually gay and they were used as insults rather than any expression of homophobia.
In the end, these fans were fined and banned as nothing more than a token gesture. Thousands have sung the “you can stick sol campbell up your ####” song and thousands more sung the “gay judas with HIV” song. These fans were simply made examples of to appease absurdely sensitive, massively overpaid footballers.
And then we have other fans singing about 56 fans from a rival club who were burned to death, yet they are allowed to keep on singing about it.
We have Chelsea fans making hissing sounds to remind the jewish spurs fans of their parents and grandparents who were systematically murdered in Holcaust.
We have Manchester City and Liverpool fans mocking Manchester United about the Munich Air Disaster.
And yet on the people being paid £50,000 a week are the ones who are protected.
Go figure.
First of all I’m a Spurs fan – I agree The Huddie fans should stop singing about the fire as it is immoral, but it isn’t an arrestable offense.
2nd – The Campbell chant is NOT racist or homophobic so the fans should never have been charged for Racism or homophobia [and I don't think they were charged for either] I think the charges were for offensive chanting in public or something like that.
Hi, Spurs fan hear. Your article asks the question that a lot of Spurs fans ask – why are the Spurs fans being made an example of. I am not condoning the Sol song but to me it is no different (other than it is aimed at one individual)to numerous other songs/chants that have been around for years, as has the Sol song. In fact some are much worse – songs about your fire, Munich etc. Something we also experience, and you could say that because we refer to ourselves as the Yids we bring this upon ourselves, is opposing fans making hissing, noises supposedly replicating the sounds of the gas chamber. Don’t believe that anyone has ever been arrested for any of these chants. Anyhow need to get back to sleep – good luck to you for rest of season
Good article, but the song sang about S*l was not racist and
borderline homophobic, the reason we are targeted is it seems
to be this years fashion to knock Spurs, why are the Chelsea
and West Ham fans not targeted when they hiss (as in gas chambers) at us
during games, this is not only racist but completely sick, why
are the fans who sing the Munich song at Man U targeted and
prosecuted, the FA have now set a precedent which they cannot
hope to enforce. but hey its alright its only Spurs.
As a Town fan, I have heard these chants in the past from an idiotic minority and have seen these people be told in no uncertain terms to shut up (on one occasion at York it came to blows). Considering your team’s current status I can understand your need to take the moral high ground, but rest assured most decent Town supporters are not amused to hear songs about such a tragedy.
Technically Michael, Spurs fans are the ONLY people who can definitively say whether the Campbell chant was racially or homosexually motivated.
Homosexually? Debatable since it was used as an insult and there is no proof he is actually gay.
Racially? 100% no.
In my 10 years sitting in the East Stand lower I heard one racist comment. One. You know what happened? About 100 people nearby started shouting at him while a couple went off to get a steward who promptly removed him from the ground.
I can understand the thought that if enough people in a visible place say something (managers, players, the courts) that you can start thinking there is an ounce of truth to a claim but the Campbell chant being racist?
Neither intended nor conveyed.
Good article and an excellent start to BfB’s 10th year.
The template of this article could apply to many things in relation to the divide between Premiership and the Football Leagues. Your recent article asking why Paul McLaren is allow to be elbowed in the face unpunished, whilst Emmanuel Adebayor is sent-off for a similar challenge relates to refereeing standards. Your not so recent article about Dean Windass been suspended for allegedly swearing at an official in the club’s car park relates to divergent FA punishments. Could you honestly see Wayne Rooney been suspended for 5 games for swearing at a referee? He still persists to aggressively swear throughout games without even the sight of a yellow card.
I believe it is all down to the Premiership being in the spotlight. The audience of the Premiership is now at an international level. Astronomical amounts of people watch the televised games. I watched Tottenham V Portsmouth on Sunday, how many Spurs or Pompey fans will be watching Bradford City V Darlington on Sky in February?
Due to the media attention that Sol Campbell issue got, The FA was required to take action. Failure to do so would open The FA to intense media criticism. I could point to ten incidents that have happened in League 2 over the past two years that would have led to the FA taking similar actions if the incident had occurred between to Premiership teams.
Unfortunately, a number of Spurs fans at the game that day have brought the unwanted attention to their club. However, it does not prejudice my views against Spurs, as I am aware of fans from many different clubs that have participated in similar events unnoticed.
1. Sol sol wherever you may be
2. Not long now ’till lunacy
3. And it won’t be long ’till you’re hanging from a tree
4. You gay judas with HIV
In February 2006 Campbell, towards the end of his Arsenal tenure went AWOL after a terrible performance against West Ham. He didn’t return to training for 5 days and didn’t play for the first team until mid April.
It was in response to this event that the chant was created.
Line 1 is a slightly altered version of the theme to the lord of the dance (dance dance wherever you may be). It is easy to recognise and sing and it sets the rhythm of the song.
Line 2 is a reference to the perceived mental instability following his AWOL event, the hope was that perhaps we was beginning to regret his move maybe. The hope was that finally the Spurs fans might have something to show in reponse to the move that robbed us of well over £10m, our best player and captain to our most fierce rivals, giving them the greatest taunting weapon they could ever have over us. Now it seemed that Campbell was having a bad time. A little like we had since he had left. It was shadenfreude and we wanted to rub it in – what other recourse did Spurs fans have?
Line 3 again references his mental fragility suggesting that someone so sensitive and unable to take the pressures of the Premier League might end up committing suicide. The word “tree”; can you find something else that rhymes with “be” and “Lunacy” to hang yourself from?
Line 4, there have long been question marks over his sexuality if for no other reason than he is not married and very guarded over his personal life. But since when was “gay” not also been a generic insult? It is often used as such without suggesting that the person is in fact, gay. The hope being that since he is so guarded, he might also be extremely sensitive about it – hence he might not like being called “gay”. The HIV reference is distaseful especially when combined with the gay reference but most of all, it rhymes.
But we are debating racism here, not homophobia. And there is none. At all. Even the courts agreed on this so why should anyone persist with the opinion that it was racist?
I think it’s sad that other fans are so keen to assume the worst and justify that position by saying “oh other fans do it” or “I know it was just a minority”.
Please stop reading more into this than there is. People are always so keen to adopt indignancy but as a Spurs fan who was there when this chant started I can tell you with more authority than any player, manager or court can that the chant was not, is not and never has been in any way, racist.
“The bottom line is if you sing that a black footballer should be hanging from a tree then you are being racist whether you want to be or not – primarily because the people singing these songs are aware of the meanings – be they double or not – and the fact that they are found offensive and racist.”
Michael: are you saying that even if the song wasn’t intended to be racist, the fact that others may react sensitively to it is good enough reason to deem it racist?
Quite a leap of logic, isn’t it?
You are a great example of the mindset that believes what it wants to believe even when the obvious is staring them in the face.
It is clearly more comfortable for you to cast this as a racial issue and your casual dismissal of the importance of rhyming in a terrace song is testimony to your attempt at dismissing my argument. My so-called “pathetic set of technicalities” are the basis of terrace songs – they rhyme, they have beginnings in real world events. Then you agree that in a court of law (afraid I doubt your authority here but let’s go with it anyway) doubt would be introduced yet still you assume guilt through this admitted doubt when the burden of truth is always on the accusor!
This is a bizarre point of view you have. The very basis of your argument begins and ends before any truth or logic is introduced – you assume guilt before anything and dismiss the more logical, yet less controversial (controversy being the point of your original article) point of view in favour of the emotive, button-pressing and far less likely option.
My so-called “flimsy defence” is nothing less than the most obvious and likely explanation of the nature of that chant and how anyone with even the basic knowledge of Occam’s Razor can dismiss it is most strange.
You steadfastly cling to a convoluted, discredited and wildly unlikely theory because you like to talk about the unpalatable. Even when it has no basis in reality.
It’s this type of thinking that assumes America were responsible for 9/11, we never went to the moon and the Illuminati secretly run the world in the face of blinding, obvious logic.
A Spurs fan who was there, who has sung that song and is as close to an authority as you are likely to get has told you how and why it is. The courts told us what they think too. To deny this and continue to say that chant was racist is simply embarassing yourself and admitting your opinions are based on evidences that have no grounding in logic whatsoever.
I reckon 95% of footie fans go for that alone – the other 5% need to find other things to keep them “amused” I’ve seen City fans behave really badly and chant all sort of things at players, plus spit and more – same to oppo fans who then have a go back.
We can’t do much about the 5% element, other than point them out when possible so they can be removed from the grounds.
My experience was earlier this year but one could pick out any trip to Huddersfield Town in the last twenty years. When I sat with the Town fans during the 2-0 defeat a few years ago I was sickened by what I heard and no – they do not get short shrift from the Town fans.
It is a different argument and one that is not really being debated here but many people – and I would include myself – do consider the song to be both racist and homophobic believing that it is racially and homomorphically motivated. There is an argument that says that a mass of people chanting really do not think much about what they do chant but I would not agree with that and believe that a person is responsible for what comes out of their mouths.
Ultimately a judgement is to be made on the nature of the song and if it is racist and or homophobic and no doubt public opinion will hold a view too. I’m reminded of Bill Clinton’s testimony and how detailed analysis was able to prove that he did not do something that he patently and admitted to by a wider definition.
The point I am making is that Leeds fans should not sing about plane crashes and Chelsea fans should not mimic gas chambers. Is it a sad way forward to have football chanting scrutinised? Perhaps. Is it a worse way forward to have a tacit agreement in place that football fans are allowed to be as vulgar as they like because they are – by their nature – in capable of behaving within the remit of a society? Before policing come self-policing and perhaps that is the way forward.
Again I do not believe that either you or I can make a definitive comment on if the song is intended to be racist or not. One may be able to use technicalities to prove it is not (as mentioned in a different reply) but we can only make a judgement call on the motivations of the singers.
I would agree they should be applauded but we must also look at the reasons way this progress is made in one direction and not another and I do not thing that questioning why Sol Campbell’s sensibilities are more to be protected than mine is criticism.
Don’t fret Alex – we took the moral high ground on this when we were in the Premiership too. More seriously though this article is in no way an attack on the majority of Town fans – if Bradford was geographically next to Northampton or Inverness or Torquay I’m sure similar would be heard from a section of those (examples of) club’s fans – but it is based on my experience and obviously that is mainly with our local rivals.
More power to your elbow.
I’ll detail my thoughts on what was intended by the chants in a moment but to suggest that racism was not conveyed is obviously wrong – it it was not conveyed then I for one and everyone else would not be under the impression that it is racist. Racism is conveyed in the phrase “hanging from a tree” regardless of the intention or the number and profile of the people who discuss it.
I would say DDS that Spurs fans can no more say definitively if the chant was racist than any other fans. Only the people who were singing it know what was motivating them. They know if when they said Sol Campbell had HIV if they were using it to say he was gay and they know if they were meaning “hang from a tree” in terms of the biblical reference, in terms of a reference to lynchings or as a general reference to simians.
Because we do not know what went through their minds we can only make judgment calls based on what we believe someone singing those words would mean. It is possible that the song was written is about the death of Judas – not many football chants include Biblical references but it is possible – but it is also possible it was written as a reference either to lynchings or to simians and if that is not why it was written it may certainly be why it has been taken up by others, perhaps including those who sang it, by and those who were arrested.
My judgment is that if I were a Spurs fan as angry as angry could be about one of my players leaving I would not sing it because I would consider it racist.
Also – and as a side issue – I was taught by Priests at a Catholic school – and had always been under the impression that – that Judas did not hang himself but rather burst open and had his bowels fall out in a kind of act of God and that this formed the basis for the torture of disembowelment which made the subject like Judas (and dead). A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that that is true in Acts but not in Matthew and one would wonder where this left any defence that the song is not racist because it refers Matthew 27:9-10 when one could assume that if one was Biblically well read enough while not having used the text to follow any branch of Christianity which would approve of abusing one’s fellow man (and, by extension, intelligent enough) to know how Judas is reported to have died then one might also be assumed to not only know the confusion the Bible presents on this issue but also the associated other connotations. Are we to believe that these supporters have a knowledge of the Bible but not of lynchings or the connotations between the words “hanging”, “tree” and a black footballer? If we are are we comfortable with the idea that a man might say “Yes, I know this is offensively racist if read in one way but I personally meant it in a non-racist and just wholly offensive manner.”
Is that not as ludicrous as Chelsea supporters defending the hissing noises (which I should point out that I find equally repugnant) by suggesting they were making the noise of (for example) the bubble of the other side’s season bursting? Would we consider such a defence to be “100% no”?
I should add – for clarity – that I really do not consider Spurs to have racist fans – or Southend for that matter – but that some of many if not all clubs have racists who follow them. I do not seek to tar all with one brush but – as detailed in Southend argument of a few years ago if someone were to use the term “Racist Bradford City fans” I would not consider myself to be included in that set of people.
You ask “What other recourse did Spurs fans have?” after Campbell had “robbed” you of £10m – one wonders what Crystal Palace would think about that in relation to the John Bostock transfer – but one recourse would have been to not act like some kind of retribution needed to be taken on Campbell who rightly or wrongly did give Spurs years of service and left through fair means albeit ones you may not like. Part of the original article is a question as to why football fans feel the need to shout offensive and horrible things at players and I would suggest that saying that it will not be long until someone kills themselves is just that. I do not think it is a fair comment reaction back to Campbell giving your club service and then deciding to leave – I think it is appalling that grown men want to sing something like this just because they do not like someone’s choices in their career.
This is not booing a former player for five minutes at the start of a game it is a systematic abuse campaign targeted at a specific player who for all the perceived ills he has done you has committed no crime against you nor deprived you of anything other than his services which he has a right to do so. It is sickening that there seems to be a belief in some that Sol Campbell deserves a level of abuse over and above that reserved for other players which goes beyond the borders of good taste.
I say again that it is not for you to say that this is not a racist song – certainly not on the merits that it rhymes better – and that the listener can make his or her own mind up as to what this or any song means. You ask me to stop reading more into it, I think you should stop making an apologist defence for people who want to sing racist songs and that that defence – no matter how well iterated you make it – is based on a pathetic set of technicalities which at best in a court of law could be used to create doubt but could never be said to create truth.
The bottom line is if you sing that a black footballer should be hanging from a tree then you are being racist whether you want to be or not – primarily because the people singing these songs are aware of the meanings – be they double or not – and the fact that they are found offensive and racist. If one does it in such a deliberate, thought out, systematic way as it is obvious from your comment the Campbell abuse is (line numbers on football songs?) then one is fully aware of the wider meanings and the offence they call and uses the technicality that there could be a legal blur around the “tree” line as a way to get away with singing something one knows is offensive and would be considered by most to be racist. That is all.
This is not the glories of free speech it is using technicalities to get away with being racist in order to abuse a man who – his wanting to move to another club aside – has done no ill to you whatsoever. This is grown men wanting to should horrible abuse with impunity. Football is an emotive game but there is no reason why emotion should be allowed to be unchecked. Where is the line on what the Spurs fans in question would do to Campbell drawn? Would emotion justify assault?
I agree it is wrong to justify a position on the grounds that “oh other fans do it” but think it is wrong to say that it is not a minority of supporters. I have to say I’ve met a few Spurs fans in person and all have a dislike of Campbell joining Arsenal but all had the self-control to not resort to the kind of vile abuse that unfortunately and distressingly Spurs are becoming known for.
Spurs fans – the good ones – should have made it clear that this song tarnishes the good image of the club which has – as many point out – been more sinned against than sinning but rather the representation in this debate is trying to justify the abuse and the abusers with flimsiest technical defence. It is a waste of the club’s good name.
That is almost exactly what I’m saying with one proviso – if the song wasn’t intended to be racist, the fact that others may react sensitively to it is good enough reason to deem it racist if the singers are aware that it is found offensive?
Language is – onomatopoeias aside – all connotation and when knows that something is offensive or racist or upsetting and one continues it any way then one is being offensive or racist or deliberately upsetting. Now of course there may be good reason for it – I can say that I believe all the followers of David Icke or the BNP are deluded and still continue saying a follower has told me they are offended by being labelled thus – but I do so in full knowledge that what I have said is offending them.
Thus these Spurs fans – who we learn wrote their song some three years ago and sang it until it became notorious and commented on – are fully aware that what they are singing is understood to be racist yet continue to sing it. Language only has a meaning when it is heard and decoded and if you know what you say will be decoded to be understood to be racist and still you say it (with an obvious note that this song is supposed to be offensive) then you are being racist.
At least that is my opinion.
Firstly you might think that I will believe what I want to and you may thing it highly obvious that Spurs fans were making biblical references but I would suggest that that is not for me, or you, to decide but rather for the readers of this debate and the wider public.
I believe strongly that this is a racial issue and I am far from alone in that and far from incorrect. You talk about terrace songs as if they are a set of rules that govern them in a way that means they cannot be judged in a wider context but the vast majority of songs sung up and down the land for the last 100 years have managed to be created avoiding the necessity to say thing that people might find offensive just so that it scans and is easy to pick up.
I do not assume guilt, I accuse it. I have said that in my judgement people who are singing this song are being racist – it is not an assumption it is a statement – and the doubt you talk of is a “reasonable doubt” which (and I am no expert on law as I have said) were I asked to make a legal judgement in this (hypothetical) case I would say that there was not a reasonable doubt that the supporters were singing a song which they knew would be understood as being racist. The fact that the people who sang the song in full knowledge and in the belief that it was racist are absolved by apologists who are forming technical arguments designed to muddy the waters is neither here nor there in my belief that the people who sing this song in the knowledge that it is understood to be racist are themselves being racist.
I know that controversy was not the point of my article but you can decide it was in the same way I have on the Spurs supporters. I believe that the situation with chanting, the abuse of players/fans and the vitriol of some supporters at football is reaching new worrying levels and have used the article as a way to speak on that. You can judge that how you will but it is very much in keeping with previous articles on this website I have written.
Occam’s Razor is a bizarre thing to deputise into your argument at this point but I would retort with Einstein’s comment that things should be made a simple as possible, but no more simple. Even William of Occum despaired at how his work was misunderstood during his lifetime and it was never supposed to mean “it was probably the most obvious thing that happened”. One might as well say that the opposite it true because Doyle said “That when all other possibilities are removed one is always left with the truth”.
I would not characterise the assumption that the chanting of some Spurs fans was racially motivated as “a convoluted, discredited and wildly unlikely” and I would say it has a wide basis in reality. I would say that the vast majority who heard the chant would consider it racist and I would add to that that the vast majority of the Spurs fans who sang it understood the racial overtones and sang it anyway.
“It’s this type of thinking that assumes America were responsible for 9/11, we never went to the moon and the Illuminati secretly run the world in the face of blinding, obvious logic.” – erm… I have no answer to this aside from to say that if you have issues with people who believe that then I recommend you take it up with people who believe that and not me.
You understand the racial overtones and you understand that people find it racially offensive. As a Spurs fan who was there and who sang the song I would say that you are an unpleasant man for sure – the idea that you are proud of singing what is one of the most sickening chants to have every come off a terrace is very troubling – and that I would characterise you as a racist too. I would welcome a reply to my points about Chelsea, about what Campbell has done to deserve systematic abuse and about how when one understands one is saying something that others find racist one can continue to say them and not be considered to be racist to set a context for what you have said but I doubt I will get them with your argument having become a series of ad hominem suggestions of conspiracy theories.
Returning to the article I said I worried about football when the supporters want to go to the edge of what is legal in their desire to spit out as foul and offensive abuse as possible be it at other players or other supporters. This debate and your attitude in it highlights exactly where that worry comes from.