Regarding the US-Honduras match at RFK http://www.soccertimes.com/wagman/2002/aug22.htm If fans are seperated in every other country in the world, and in other sports in the US, does this suit actually have the possibility of ruining what little chance we have of creating a home field advantage for the National team? All I can say is this guy is a schmuck. I don't care who he was going to root for. He is a Salvadoran after all. Anyone who knows anything about DC United and Raul Diaz Arce will see the possibility of extreme bias that already exists in this case. Discuss...
He was discriminated against based on his last name. He has a clear cut case. He was a US soccer fan, but he could not get a ticket in the US fan area because of his last name. How fair is that? Whether he needs to sue about it is another matter. His ambulance-chasing lawyer probably is behind most of this.
I wouldn't say he was a US fan as much as he was a fan rooting against Honduras. And I am not really arguing whether or not he has a case, that is for the court to decide. I am wondering what kind of effect this case will have regarding future matches and creating a home field advantage for the US team.
I dont think he should have any case, although i am sure he will make an impact. This would mean seeing plenty of Mexi flags on TV at Gillette and RFK Stadiums. Mexican fans have been known to get groups too order tickets in prime seats early in other countries, please dont let that happen to us.
The impact? Well, it could make it tough to segregate the home and visiting fans. I dunno. I think most of it will take care of itself, as fans will get tickets in their appropriate sections. However, a few will try to sit in the "wrong" sections and it will mean beer throwing and fights and what not. This is a shame, but I'm not sure how you can stop it. Heck, you're going to get that stuff anyway, so you rely on security to contain it.
The other problem is that there are thousands of real US fans that have Hispanic surnames. Some of them even had trouble getting tickets to the same match, but they used other avenues to get good tickets and didn't sweat the effort the USSF was going to to help create a home field advantage. Should everyone have to belong to a group or club to get "US" seats? Should there be a "prefered fan" list? I think the USSF has to do something to help segregate fans in order to provide the best atmosphere possible at these matches, for cheering purposes as much, if not more than, security.
This is how it should go. First the teams season tiks holders buy first, then members of ussoccer.com's center circle thing get there tickets. That should just a bout fill most of the us seats with US fans. This is a tough situation, but seperating the fans is not just to create a home field advantage but to stop violence beetween fans. I have been to Fenway for Sox-Yankee games before, and there are always fights in the grandstand beetween fans. Imagine how bad it would be if it was an international match.
I don't need to imagine. I almost got into a scuffle with a drunk at the US-Uruguay match at RFK. The thing that sucked was that I couldn't leave where I was. I was watching other people's stuff while they were away getting food and beverages. So I had to bark back, and keep wiping spittle off my face. I didn't mind being surrounded by the 50 Uruguayans who were drumming and singing, just that one who was trying to start something with me. I probably wouldn't have restrained from knocking his lights out had the other 49 not been around. And he was one big dude. I actually enjoy being able to sit with fans from the other team, as long as they have some sense of decency and common courtesy. I can handle the taunts and the jeers, but screaming in someone's face and spitting all over them doesn't quite fit that description. You know what they say about "one bad apple"...
Screw him. Screw him until he dies. He wasn't a US fan so I could give a ************ about him. What a scumbag he is. We have a hard time getting homefield advantage as it is and here a Honduran fan is using our courts so he can get tickets to support Honduras. ************ him and the lawyer he road in on. The paltry efforts that the USSF has taken to try to organize US fan support don't need to be undermined by arsehol@a like him. Should an American fan with a hispanic name be discriminated against in trying to support the USA? No way, in fact we'd be better off if there were more hispanic American fans coming out for us (especially in southern California). Should we discriminate against some Honuduran fan with a hispanic name trying to scarf up a USA fan's ticket so he can support the opposition? I say yes, absolutely. This may not be politically correct but I honestly don't care. I am sick to death of watching the USA play "away" at home and I hate to the core scumbags that make it harder for us like this piece of ************.
Tell us how you really feel. A couple of things... 1. As per usual, Wagman is as much commentary and spin as news. The central issue in the case is NOT fan segregation but rather the alleged practice by USSF of not selling tickets to fans based on Latino-sounding last names. Like it or not, he has a case. 2. This is not a new issue and was discussed extensively about two weeks ago. There's nothing new here. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=3225
Maybe, what might be new would be USA fans telling the rest of the sad sack multicultural apologist anti-American sad sacks and their whoring lawyers to go ************ off. The USSF needs to stop distancing itself from its fans. It needs to officially recognize legitimate fan organizations, arrange ticket sales through them and leave the FIFA alloted required minimums to opposition fans and then stick them in the worst most isolated god-awful parts of our stadiums. If that isn't a new enough idea to suit you, it still is a damn good one. Any old responses to it that you want to redirect us unwashed patriots to?
If the lads at Soccer House were working with Brain One here, this is how tickets would be distributed... 1) Season ticket holders of host venue... 2) Season ticket holders of all other MLS clubs... 3) Season ticket holders of all other A-League, D3, and other clubs... 4) Anybody not covered on the above lists who shows up on the mailing list of ussoccer.com or Sam's Army... 5) All remaining tickets will then be distributed to the nearest US military installations... There, that ought to do it...
Some interesting suggestions there. I disagree with "anyone on the mailing list" though -- it's too easy to get on a mailing list. Have to do better than that and this would require the USSF to recognize and work with Sam's Army or other legit US Supporter groups on an organized and secure basis. Right now the cooperation is informal and sort of works since the SA organization is not that huge in numbers.
HEY MODS!!!!! Thanks for the link JohnW. I didn't realize this had already been discussed. This thread can be merged or deleted or whatever, if need be.
In England it's actually a criminal offence for an away fan to try to gain admission to a home section, and vice-versa. In practice it does often happen that fans will go into other sections when tickets are limited, but they know the rules so tend to be discrete. Even if it would be hard to bring in a law such as this in the US, it would surely be easy to put notices on tickets saying that the ticket is for US fans only, and anyone supporting the opposition can be refused admission or ejected from the stadium. Such notices are always written on tickets in England along with the statement that by purchasing the ticket the holder is agreeing to abide by the stadium rules as stated.
Sounds reasonable to me. Let's get the legislators working on this. "I refer the right honorable gentleman to the reply I made just a few minutes before."
Actually, there was quite a lot of that sentiment in the other thread. That was exactly my point. Nevertheless, I so appreciate your reasoned and logical response to both my post and the issue at hand. I've learned so much from you.
This issue is quite a personal one for me and I hesitate to jump in. The last thing I want to do is undermine the USSF's defense, so I'll say little. I can empathize with Senor Martinez as a very similar thing happened to me for the same match. However, the situation was remedied after a couple irate phone calls and a letter. What is difficult to understand is the behavior of Humberto Martinez if he claims to be an American fan. Why try to destroy and defame the organization in charge of your futbol team? Okay, for the Ghost of BillR4, that is a rhetorical question. Further complicating this issue is that anyone from central America should not be surprised by the USSF's ticket-selling practice. I remember last August when this story was surfacing. Many Hondurans acknowledged the difficulty to get tickets, knew of ways to circumvent the issue, and most agreed that the USSF should do whatever it could to get a homefield advantage. They'd shrug and say, "that's fooball."