Wait a minute - I think most MLS venues allow most of that stuff (although I would rather it be an across the board situation on flags, reasonable flag polls, drums, horns, etc.). The flares - you have to admit, from a fire-warden standpoint, they are a long shot. (That is why we don't have them at the CB). And unless someone tried to fire one up, I don't see how this would lead to any erosion of what rights we currently have.
Chicago fans have done flares several times at different stadiums with no injuries. Flares are only problems when the people that have them are problems themselves. These accidents happen all the time in Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Russia, ect...
Slav hater They're only a problem when you lob a flare at someone elses head. Even so it's as much of a problem as a rock or other hard object, just that flare looks more impressive on tv so media vultures love it. But flares are just the part of whole thing anyway... numbers and loud songs are allways the mainstay, supporters in US have to work on basics like that before tackling details. Flares don't hurt people, people hurt people
Bingo! The only reason this was on Sportscenter was because it was something so out of the pale and so malicious that they couldn't not show it (they didn't even show Milan's goal during the game, just what preceeded the flairs and flair chucking itself). It makes soccer look like a hooligan's game to the non-fan.
It's not so hard to understand. When I was in college, my alma mater played a game against Indiana (Bobby Knight was still there) and some of the calls against us (we only won 8 games that year) were awful. After an especially bad call (an IU player fell down when he went to post up, because he expected a defender to be there and the defender was on the other side of the lane... the defender was called for a foul) the home fans started chucking coins on the court. They had to stop the game and ask the fans to "please refrain from throwing items". I'm not saying that's what was going on at San Siro, but when fans get frustrated by what they feel is a (series of) clear injustice(s), they often lash out in foolish ways. Or they could simply have been a bunch of punks looking for an excuse to start trouble. Seen that too.
Actually, no they are not allowed into games. The people who bring them in do so in violation of the stadium rules. Throwing flares onto the field at ANY time is a stupid thing to do.
Or if you have a beer in one hand (third or fourth of the night) and a lit flare in the other, and you're standing within 10 feet of 5-8 other people.
Actually, when I went to Lazio games 10 years ago "fuochi d'artificio" were encouraged in writing on the back of the ticket. There was a list of things you couldn't bring but in big, bold writing they encouraged it.
You are delusional, this will never happen in the US and rightfully so. Just what I want to worry about, some drunken idiot with a flare setting my son on fire.
officially they aren't allowed, but Italian stewards don't even make a token effort at crowd control. The police don't do anything either unless actual fighting is taking place.
Personally, I've never understood how setting fires and starting riots inside your own stadium equals "atmosphere". The only thing it equals is stupidity. Flares should never be allowed at any stadium, period. Same as smoke bombs, glass bottles, and a few other things. It's risk/reward. Even if 99.999% of the time, everyone handles their own business with those items completely without incident, it's STILL not worth it to allow dangerous, and potentially deadly materials to be used in large crowds. Isn't that just common sense? Why would you ever, ever want to allow rowdy, amped up, and often times liquored up people to have instruments of fire in crowds of 50,000 people? What can happen that's good? As for MLS -- The worst thing I've seen in MLS is bottle-throwing, and it's been a while since I've seen that. I don't think there's going to be any kind of trickle-down effect at MLS venues anytime soon.
the day MLS starts allowing Flares and other incediary devices into their stadium is the day I stop attending MLS matches.
In about every case smoke bombs and flares go off in supporter sections (so there are no children, pregnant women and old men runnin about), not where sympathizers (sitting sections) are. I think only time I saw flares around my whole stadium was when they set of 400 to break Croatian record (that was also only time flares were legaly brought in stadium). Everyone can have different opinion on it, obviously since I grew up with it I think it's great. Aside from my flag and jacket getting singed a little few times, nothing else ever happened Anyways, American groups have much growing up to do before anything like pyro needs to be brought up