I break my silence for one last reply, Mr Flannigan, and I look forward to seeing you at upcoming WCQ's next year........... But nowhere in Trecker's article are the Fire blamed for this policy procedure of racial profiling at soccer matches, at least not in the Trecker tidbit provided in the firealarm link. Either the author of the most recent diarhea is incompotent at his hobby or does poor research. Garcia security has repeatedly over-reacted to the Fire fans over years and has targeted many of the Polish Ultras in particular. And this is what Trecker points out.
Dude, don't talk to us about selective reading. You're just taking random words from this whole thread and weaving them into a hairshirt.
Speaking of which, you should apologize now for saying certain posters don't want American soccer to succeed. If anything, that's yet another lie that has been disproven on this thread. But you don't read our posts anyway, so you wouldn't know.
Normally, I don't wade in when someone rips my writing. However, I am going to do so here, at the risk of getting into a flame war. 1) Trecker has said some bad stuff about Fire supporter's in the past IIRC. The fact that he is sounding supportive at this point is just a sad way to back his thesis in the article. 2) I did not read Trecker's quote selectively. I saw for what it was - calling my home town and the club that I support as racists. That sort of charge is outside of the line. 3) Based on what I have read of your posts, I can tell that you are compensating for a lack of ability to get an erection, like many internet geeks like you. 4) Are you really Jamie Trecker in disguise? Bill Q.
Mr. Trecker's own words: "Stadium security notoriously 'sanitised' Chicago Fire matches, beating up Hispanic and Polish fans in the parking lot (my assistant was once mistaken for one of these infidels; I had to rescue him before he was ejected) for a number of years, effectively ensuring that the people who showed up were as white and suburban as could be." Simon, I don't like security at soccer games either. I think some often prey on the common misperception that American soccer fans are violent to pad their overtime checks. They eject or arrest people over trivial matters, thus justifying their continued presence as well as getting more pay by showing up in court again and again over these "incidents". I know that the Polish Ultras have been targeted. I know of no effort to keep Hispanics out of Fire games. It is a very serious allegation to say that there is a plan to keep the games "as white and suburban as could be." It is also totally false. Just my opinions.
"Stadium security notoriously 'sanitised' Chicago Fire matches, beating up Hispanic and Polish fans in the parking lot (my assistant was once mistaken for one of these infidels; I had to rescue him before he was ejected) for a number of years, effectively ensuring that the people who showed up were as white and suburban as could be." Sounds like an active policy of ethnic cleansing to me. Seriously dude: http://www.hookedonphonics.com look into it.
Mr. Trecker has written many times that Chicago Fire General Manager Peter Wilt wanted soccer moms and their ilk and didn't want a rowdy supporters' section. Totally false. At the Colorado Rapids game in 100 degree heat last summer, Mr. Wilt went to bat for a Polish Ultra who had been ejected over a rather trivial matter. The Ultra returned to Section 8 without an arrest. How many GMs would do that? Walk around a Fire game and count the number of different Mexican League jerseys worn by the fans. In Section 8, we often see America, Chivas and Cruz Azul jerseys among the standing fans. No one has mentioned a very similar article in the London Financial Times on July 24, 2003. The author wrote of the Manchester United tour in a very condescending fashion. The piece was swarming with errors and I wrote to protest. No retraction has been printed. Readers of this prestigious paper now believe that the NASL was the first professional soccer league in the U.S. and that women's soccer is "thriving" in the U.S. while men's soccer is in the doldrums. I pointed out that the WUSA has many financial problems and urged him to read the book "The American Soccer League the Golden Age of American Soccer 1921-1931". The English editors seem to want to denigrate American soccer at every turn and will print such material when it comes their way. Just my opinions
Idiot, Chicago Fire and Garcia Security are two different entities. Nowhere does Trecker say that the Fire sanction this, although with posters like you, it might not be a bad policy. Just because the NJSEA acts like dicks and kicks out members of the ESC or because Barra Bravva has problems with the RFK security does not mean that the actions of security and their heavy handed tactics of scorn and abuse equate to the MLS club sanctioning such acts. This is where your pithy and ever so humorous attempt at humor with provided link is merely an opportune time for me to quote "hello pot, this is kettle." Please take some time to rationaly think things through and read someone's work. You failed when you criticized Trecker on this one, in your zeal to crucify the man, you end up looking absurd. Yes, the guy is a blowhard and egomaniac extroirdinaire, but you're just incompotent and your choice of topic was a disgrace to the English language. Your cretenism and inanity is preposterous and you have carried the anti_trecker shtick too far. Your rationalization behind your quote is flawed, defective, and exigous. You're off base on this one.
like you should know This is BigSoccer. The next person that "permanently leaves" and does will be the first! You guys keep this up and I'll have to go back and read pages 2-12 of this thread afterall. Note to BillQ. "ne" should be "net" and "Graham Jones" is mispelled.
Should we have a small Alanis Morissette icon? Or should we rule that out since her song has several things that actually are not ironic?
Actually, I think it would be the second, as Belo Horizante managed to pull it off. And of course that's not counting the guys who seemed to have deliberately gotten themselves red carded like Brian Capelliari, Don FC, and others who have been elected to the Bigsoccer Troll Hall of Fame.
Allow me mods to expand the excerpt, if I may (I know there's copyright issues but I don't think I'm going too overboard...) Soccer remains an overwhelmingly ethnic game in America. With its mass of new immigrants, the USA enjoys a huge potential fan base for the sport, as shown by the success of the 1994 World Cup, still the competition's benchmark. The great difficulty for the sport is to hold the ethnic audience without losing the lucrative white suburban dollar. In soccer marketing, how to bridge the ethnic and racial gap remains the $64,000 question. For a long time, it has been assumed that if an event can't sell to a white, suburban audience, it cannot succeed. The further assumption is that that audience will never enjoy themselves at a heavily ethnic game. Stadium security notoriously 'sanitised' Chicago Fire matches, beating up Hispanic and Polish fans in the parking lot (my assistant was once mistaken for one of these infidels; I had to rescue him before he was ejected) for a number of years, effectively ensuring that the people who showed up were as white and suburban as could be. This schism has made soccer marketing even more troublesome. When promoters, such as ChampionsWorld who are running this tour, bring high-quality opponents, it becomes a major sporting event and attracts not just soccer fans but sports fans as well. Trecker's first two paragraph here are referring to "the sport" or "an event", either of which the reader can draw to mean the Chicago Fire. Now, you know, and I know, and others now that Garcia Security and the Chicago Fire are two different entities. However, the readership in the UK does not know this, and Trecker does not adequately differentiate between the two. To the reader who does not know this, which is probably, what, 99.5% of the public who read this article, they can easily (though incorrectly) draw an inference that the Fire controls the security and told the security to do this. This is the point that some people here are trying to make. Whereas what Trecker writes may be unpopular, and we may not agree with him, what we're trying to say is that he is practicing shoddy journalism. He should have either clearly explained that the Fire does not control the stadium security or not written anything about it. You can't write a commentary and let the public draw their own conclusions about the reporters opinions if the reporter is providing incomplete factual data.
All true. I also take the word of the many Chicago Fire fans I've read posting here that Peter Wilt is a GM that goes out of his way to make sure that all groups of fans are happy and enjoy their experience. To me, if the GM of the club tries for a multi-ethnic crowd, and the unproven opinion of the author is that a white suburban crowd is more desirable, followed by examples that don't reflect the official actions of the club, then the writer is suspect. Don't you think it would be unfair for someone to talk about excess security on hooligans in England and then draw the conclusion that the EPL actively discourages working class folks from attending games?
Maybe there's not a lot of lawyers here that can answer this, but suppose somebody from MLS headquarters wanted to get nasty about it. Would such an obvious lie, considering the charge is very explicit racism, be grounds for some kind of libel suit against either Trecker or the Guardian?
I have no idea, but to what end would such behavior get them. It isn't like Trecker's comments has caused the league an ounce of damage, and it isn't like a copyright case where if they don't speak now they have to forever hold their peace. Sending the legal goons after Trecker would be a needless expense even if they had basis for a suit. Suffice it to say, that I don't think PW will be comping Jamie Trecker any tickets in the near future.
I suppose not, but it still sucks. People who play that loose with the facts are probably the same who will just tell you to go piss off if you call them on it. Maybe I'm being smug and self-righteous, but I'm getting sick of seeing the crap that papers and magazines get away with in print, without checking basic facts. And I see it in both sports pages and regular newspapers, both left and right-leaning. I imagine you're right in saying it would take too much energy too pursue something like it, but I can also see the enjoyment out of making someone like Trecker squirm a little bit.
England's libel laws are considerably stricter than those in the U.S., but I still don't think you could do anything about a characterization or half-hearted implication. If you could, U.S. Soccer could sue the whole danged island.