Yahoo Sports noted that subhuman fan behavior is not an alien during football matches. As such, varied allegations of ticket fraud, flashing political and offensive statements and symbols, and singing racial slurs during matches are to be expected, especially if the platform is one of the biggest sports events in the world.
For this year's World Cup, there have been a slew of reports of racism and discriminatory acts by fans usually of opposing teams during a crucial match. The anti-discrimination Fare network, which had made the reports to FIFA on Thursday, was also the one who alerted the world soccer body of the use of neo-Nazi signs at matches involving Russia and Croatia. As early as last month, Italy National Team star Mario Balotelli was the subject of racial insults during a national training camp by his team's own fans.
Yahoo Sports said that FIFA has earlier imposed a new set of measures in the hopes of curbing such behavior at least during the World Cup tournament. The sports blog observed that the new rules could be viewed as cruel, even to players, who are usually targets of such acts. However, FIFA's long-term goal is to root out the subhuman behavior that has been the stain on the sport. Even FIFA executives had also agreed that financial sanctions would not work to address incidents of racism and discrimination during the tournament.
One of the options FIFA might succumb to is to foce a match to be played behind closed doors. Another, more drastic alternative is to penalize a team via a point deduction up to a complete ban to qualify for the next World Cup.
Piara Powar of Fare told the Daily Telegraph, "FIFA has some strong regulations in place and we hope they use them. Zero tolerance is the approach set out. It is what is required here. It seems that fans of some of these countries will take their hatred halfway around the world. These images need to be acted on urgently."
