Referee beheaded by fans for killing player

[Jason78]

If you're taking a weapon to a football match, you're taking a game way too seriously.

[Shiranu]

Sports are one of the best way to keep the body in shape

Watching someone else exercise is not very good exercise. Especially considering the beer involved.

At least with football (soccer) I think every single fan I know also played street football or high school football.

People can drink beer and be lazy watching sports. People can also drink beer and be lazy watching the cooking channel, or going fishing, or crocheting a nice sweater, or at work. The fact that there are fans who are lazy is no more a proof that sports are therefor bad exercise anymore than people who drink at work and get fired means work is bad for making money. It just means some people are lazy.

But to say sports are a kids game is just silly. I would like to see Johan go out and play 90 minutes of EPL (hell, even MLS) soccer, or pad up and get down there with New Orleans Saint's frontline (w/e you call it in handegg) and tell me its for kids. You go into a competitive sport thinking, "Oh, a kid could do this." and you are going to have your ass handed to you.

Humans are competitive creatures (thank god), humans are fun loving creatures, humans are tribal creatures. Sports hit all those needs as well as having the evolutionary advantage in that they keep us in shape. You don't "get to old" for sports no more than you "get to old" to run or work out.

[Johan]

I said they are adults playing kids games. That's just how I feel about it and I make no apologies for it. Now I'm sure these adults are playing these kids games at an adult level, but that doesn't change the fact that they are and always will be kids games in my eyes. But you're confusing topics a bit here.

If an adult wants to go down to the field and play baseball or football or whatever with his buddies to keep in shape, I get that. They liked playing the game when they were a kid and they still like playing it and it helps them stay in shape. I get all that. Hell I even get being a fan of the sport even if you don't play it. But when I say being a fan of the sport I mean being a fan of the sport in general. I can probably count on one hand with fingers left over the number of people I've known who fit that description.

This is because most people who claim to be fans of a sport are not really so much fans of the sport as they are fans of the team. They pick their team and they get emotionally attached to their team and passionate about it. When their team wins, they're on top of the world and when their team loses, they get depressed. I don't understand that and I never will.

I'm a fan of certain musicians. When they put out a new record, I listen to it and decide if I like it. But I don't celebrate if their record sells well and I most certainly don't get depressed if it doesn't sell well. And I could give a fuck if they win a grammy. Why? Because none of that effects me in the slightest.

So yeah, you want to be a fan of the game and derive enjoyment from watching others play it, that's fine. I get that. But when you start allowing things that have zero impact on your life, i.e. whether that team wins or loses, effect your mood or worse yet, motivate you to attack and behead someone as is the case in the story that began this thread, then I'm going to regard you as someone who is not very bright. Sorry champ, that's how I roll. Deal with it.

[aitm]

^ I hear that, as a lifelong fan of the Moody Blues, I have had many opportunities to listen to them in concert, including once when they were really, literally two blocks away. Nope. I love their music but have no interest in contributing to the idea that musicians are deserving of a "group love" that gives them any feeling of superiority over those who listen. I wish more would think like that and not give a fuck what musicians or actors say as private citizens as if they have some secret knowledge or intelligence that we cannot have because they are more "famous". Fuck that.

[Shiranu]

But when you start allowing things that have zero impact on your life, i.e. whether that team wins or loses, effect your mood or worse yet, motivate you to attack and behead someone as is the case in the story that began this thread, then I'm going to regard you as someone who is not very bright. Sorry champ, that's how I roll. Deal with it.

Too bad that's not what happened, though good for me since I therefor don't have to "deal with it".

The guy murdered someone, a mob murdered him back.

aitm: I have never gone to a concert to give a band attention, I have gone because I love their music and a live atmosphere is absolutely amazing. It's like comparing masturbating to sex with... um... someone attractive, like that blonde model with the huge tits...

[Plu]

Myeah. I'll never understand sports fans either and I think watching sport is among the dumbest things there is, but this entire event seemed unrelated to sports and entirely related to morons inflicting mob-justice on someone. Makes no difference whether someone was lynched over killing a man during a game or for any other reason; it's still nothing more than mob justice.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Stab my team's players and we'll draw and quarter your ass at midfield! I wonder if the birds pecks his eyes out, but one thing's for damned sure.. The next referee won't be carrying a knife.. A gattling gun perhaps, but not a knife.
So what lessons can we draw here? Never take a knife to a drawn an? quartered match.

[Broede]

Okay, not sure why the original quote is bugging out in my post, but here it is from Johan...

"Says you. Baseball, football, basketball, soccer were all games I played when I was kid. Then I grew up. Now I couldn't care less about playing them and I certainly couldn't care less about watching adults play them. I don't understand the attraction and I probably never will.

Who won? Who cares. It has zero impact on my life nor the life of anyone else unless they let it have an impact. In which case, much like religion, any perceived effect positive or negative, is all in their head."

I'm with you and FrankDK on this one.  And not only has our world iconified the sports themselves, but we have elevated their players (especially the ones in the U.S.) to celebrity status.  We venerate them moreso than teachers, soldiers, doctors and scientists COMBINED.  You know -- people who actually do a fucking thing that matters in this life.

Quoting Plu:
"Myeah. I'll never understand sports fans either and I think watching sport is among the dumbest things there is, but this entire event seemed unrelated to sports and entirely related to morons inflicting mob-justice on someone. Makes no difference whether someone was lynched over killing a man during a game or for any other reason; it's still nothing more than mob justice."

And while I agree with you in spirit, that people should be able to separate the fact from the fiction, it all boils down to people taking things too seriously.  And, unfortunately, many human beings take certain hobbies so seriously that they are willing to kill over it.  You can see examples like that in modern American culture.

[Jutter]

I'm going to try and take a sort of middle ground here.

- The kiddie-sports thing falls flat. People may start off young playing these games, but it's the adult players that reach a level that impressive enough to watch. Dodgeball. Now there's a kiddiesport.
- Though I rarely watch sports and I don't practice any sport I don't look down on sport. It's no stranger to watch for instance a footballmatch than a moviethriller; both are sources of suspence.
- Though it's regrettable that people like teachers or doctors or scientists don't receive the same level of admiration as athletes, the admiration for exceptional athletes is no stranger than the admiration for an exceptional visual artist; both are examples of craftsmanship gained through lots of devoted training.

What I do find pathetic, is when people become reliant on a sportsteam for their identity, thus reliant on other peoples achievements for their own selfesteem. Those are the ones that lose their shit if the team is losing.

But there was also something going on with the head of a brazillian referee on a stake, who was drawn and quartered after stabbing a player to death.
So why did the ref. carry a knife anyway? Something tells me, the following just mmmmmight have something to do with it.

Anyone remember reading about this guy? A referee kicked to death rescently.

Maybe some referees are a little on edge these days. Oh shit, knife, edge, no pun intended.

So here's my ironic theory: a referee who didn't want to become the next one kicked to death, got scared when a player got threatening and agressive with him after receiving a yellow/red card, panicked, stabbed with a knife he shouldn't have brought along just in case, killed the player, and got drawn and quartered.

[Broede]

- Though it's regrettable that people like teachers or doctors or scientists don't receive the same level of admiration as athletes, the admiration for exceptional athletes is no stranger than the admiration for an exceptional visual artist; both are examples of craftsmanship gained through lots of devoted training.

I'm picking out the portion of your post that I don't agree on (implying that I agree with pretty much the rest of it).  Yes, I agree, there is nothing wrong with being good at something, even something that is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless in the grand scheme of things.  Frankly, if we think about it, everything we do is pointless anyway because eventually the species will cease to exist and our impact on earth will be brushed aside as a dead mosquito brushed from an arm.

Nonetheless, given the context of our species and the fact that, while we exist, we can and should try do the best we can with said existence.  The fact that "athletes" of specific sports are iconified beyond celebrity status while thousands and thousands of different sport athletes garner barely a sliver of the recognition, despite likely being just as justifiable as a sport as any other.  Billions of dollars that could be better spent in other areas, shuffled into the hands of a select few individuals.  For what, exactly?  So they can brutalize each other for the entertainment of the neanderthal masses?

I don't know, I don't mean to get so fired up over it but I've had a strong distaste of Corporate Sports(tm) for a long time now.

[Shiranu]

If we are going to have a free market, then these guy's are going to make big money. They have a product people want so they will get paid accordingly.

Sports are no different than any other art; what is the POINT of a painting? What is the POINT of listening to good music? There isn't, besides it makes you feel good. You COULD spend all your money on feeding the poor or what have you, but instead you (the consumer) will pay big money to see your painter make a new piece, your favourite band a new album or your favourite soccer player get that $30 million contract.

If I criticise the meaninglessness of sports then I am therefor obliged to criticise the meaningless of every other medium of entertainment and the fact that people get rich off of being a part of them. I personally enjoy music, film and art too much to do that. And perhaps you guys are willing to go that route and say its stupid or childish for people to enjoy silly movies that make millions of dollars (big name actors make just as much if not more than 99% of soccer players) when those movies have no positive effect on society in the grand scale of things, but I doubt it. It's only when its something YOU don't enjoy that it becomes "bad".

[surly74]

I'm picking out the portion of your post that I don't agree on (implying that I agree with pretty much the rest of it).  Yes, I agree, there is nothing wrong with being good at something, even something that is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless in the grand scheme of things.  Frankly, if we think about it, everything we do is pointless anyway because eventually the species will cease to exist and our impact on earth will be brushed aside as a dead mosquito brushed from an arm.

if you have that view then just do everyone a favor and pull the trigger now.

Nonetheless, given the context of our species and the fact that, while we exist, we can and should try do the best we can with said existence.  The fact that "athletes" of specific sports are iconified beyond celebrity status while thousands and thousands of different sport athletes garner barely a sliver of the recognition, despite likely being just as justifiable as a sport as any other.  Billions of dollars that could be better spent in other areas, shuffled into the hands of a select few individuals.  For what, exactly?  So they can brutalize each other for the entertainment of the neanderthal masses?

I don't know, I don't mean to get so fired up over it but I've had a strong distaste of Corporate Sports(tm) for a long time now.

forget athletes, this argument could be said for everything. Actors, musicians, business owners. Athletics is nearly the one true place that ability reigns supreme. At the highest level sports is about production, not who you know, how much influence you have, just can you produce. name me one other industry that allows such a pure evalutation system.

really? neanderthal? does that make you feel better?

[surly74]

What I do find pathetic, is when people become reliant on a sportsteam for their identity, thus reliant on other peoples achievements for their own selfesteem. Those are the ones that lose their shit if the team is losing.

i had a best friend (16) tie his hopes to his cancer recovery on a hockey team which both lost. I'm not going to call at kid battling cancer pathetic if he wants to see hope in a sport. i'm also not going to judge someone who uses their sports fandom to define their reality. I don't know what their life is like and how sports is used as an escape.

[Youssuf Ramadan]

I'm going to try and take a sort of middle ground here.

- The kiddie-sports thing falls flat. People may start off young playing these games, but it's the adult players that reach a level that impressive enough to watch. Dodgeball. Now there's a kiddiesport.
- Though I rarely watch sports and I don't practice any sport I don't look down on sport. It's no stranger to watch for instance a footballmatch than a moviethriller; both are sources of suspence.
- Though it's regrettable that people like teachers or doctors or scientists don't receive the same level of admiration as athletes, the admiration for exceptional athletes is no stranger than the admiration for an exceptional visual artist; both are examples of craftsmanship gained through lots of devoted training.

What I do find pathetic, is when people become reliant on a sportsteam for their identity, thus reliant on other peoples achievements for their own selfesteem. Those are the ones that lose their shit if the team is losing.

 

The sanest post in this thread so far.   =D>

[Broede]

If we are going to have a free market, then these guy's are going to make big money. They have a product people want so they will get paid accordingly.

Sports are no different than any other art; what is the POINT of a painting? What is the POINT of listening to good music? There isn't, besides it makes you feel good. You COULD spend all your money on feeding the poor or what have you, but instead you (the consumer) will pay big money to see your painter make a new piece, your favourite band a new album or your favourite soccer player get that $30 million contract.

If I criticise the meaninglessness of sports then I am therefor obliged to criticise the meaningless of every other medium of entertainment and the fact that people get rich off of being a part of them. I personally enjoy music, film and art too much to do that. And perhaps you guys are willing to go that route and say its stupid or childish for people to enjoy silly movies that make millions of dollars (big name actors make just as much if not more than 99% of soccer players) when those movies have no positive effect on society in the grand scale of things, but I doubt it. It's only when its something YOU don't enjoy that it becomes "bad".

Should anyone be making that kind of money that contributes nothing of lasting good to society?  I agree to a point but there are very, very few musicians or artists who make the kind of money actors or athletes make.

Don't assume that, just because I'm talking about sports, I wouldn't criticize anything else just because I enjoy it.  I occasionally watch the Super Bowl or World Series.  I also don't delude myself into thinking these people are really worth the multi-million dollar contracts they hold.  I have nothing against people aspiring to be great or making a lot of money, but the point I'm trying to make is how people venerate... no, *worship*... these people.  Riots are started because of the outcome of games.  The witless Christians who say God is on the side of the Yankees mere weeks after 9/11.

Enjoy sports?  Want to have a barbecue and bullshit with your friends?  Fine, have at it.  Have your fantasy football league.  Buy all your favorite team's paraphernalia.  Just don't fucking kill people over it.  And yes, if you're killing people over a game, you ARE a neanderthal.  No, I take that back -- a neanderthal would know better.