The Nutmeg News presents our multi-part story on The American Disease: NFL Hooliganism.
With the shocking scenes of NFL hooliganism continuing in last weekends playoff games, many people have started to ask if there exists the possibility of the American Disease infecting soccer.
Two top boys having a scrap.
"It is only a matter of time before supporters groups start imitating their counterparts in the National Football League as it pertains to drunken brawls and hooligan behavior," stated John Thomas, the director of sociology at the University of Miami of Kona in Berkeley. "Fans at Football games in the United States are under a direct possibility of violence and we expect this to start appearing in soccer crowds in the United States in the next five to ten years."
After 63 people were ejected and one arrested from the recent Packers v Cardinals game, people demanded that this kind of behavior be removed from the sport entirely. We spoke to Bernard Graham, a Hooligan Studies statistician, to learn more about the efforts being taken by the league to try and combat this behavior.
"Well, we are trying to work with different video stores and Netflix to avoid stocking NFL Films Presents as well as ensuring that no Major League Soccer fan sees any of the epidemic of violence that surges forward in the terraces on Sunday by working with youtube to take down videos of the fights. It is important to not promote the hooligans in the National Football League,"
The Nutmeg News spoke with Ray Whitworth, the director of fan security for Major League Soccer, about this epidemic of violence and what Major League Soccer is doing to prevent this, "We recently worked with the National Football League to have them pull the credentials of one Danny Dyer, who was coming over to the United States from England to do interviews with National Football League firms and top boys about the violence and passion in the stands. As well, we are exploring the idea of having our players stand at midfield with a 'say no to violence' sign as some kind of pithy way to remind people not to be total dickheads."
The Nutmeg News will continue their investigation into the American Disease with part two of our series involving the math behind hooliganism.