NEW YORK - English soccer aficionado Robert Gates admitted that he won't accept American soccer supporters until they, "toughen up, stop singing, stop chanting, stab a few people, be miserable, and really hate everyone around them."
(Credit: Rob Tringali/New York Red Bulls)
"This whole thing in the United States is just Americans aping European culture," stated Gates to The Nutmeg News on Friday. "Put down your flags, you aren't Italian. Stop singing, you aren't English. Stop with your tifo displays, you aren't ultras. All fans in the United States are terrible. This isn't a melting pot, this is the USA. You don't have your own culture in soccer. Nobody will take the Timbers Army, Emerald City Supporters, the Inebriatti, the Cauldron, the South Ward, or The Ruckus seriously until they disband completely, hate their own team, and physically assault fellow fans and rival fans outside a stadium with little provocation. We need less singing, less hospitality and more petulant dickheads that are willing to fight the police, their own team and rival fans with chairs, bats and whatever they find on the ground around them."
Reportedly, Gates himself doesn't attend MLS games because he hates the standard of play, the fans, the league and the players, but he also, surprisingly, keeps telling everyone who DOES attend games what they should or shouldn't be doing like some kind of gigantic asshole.
"All these fans are just terrible, their songs are terrible, their tifo is terrible, and their so-called passion is terrible. No one should root for any soccer team in the United States or Canada because soccer wasn't invented here. You can't replace 150 years of passion just because you started caring in the last 5 years. Everyone who started caring about soccer recently is a massive hipster because real fans spent their time caring about the game back in the 1980s when you couldn't watch any teams on the television, there wasn't a national league, there was no internet and you had to know someone with a satellite dish to even catch highlights"
The Nutmeg News will have more on this as Mr Gates continues to tell people what they should be doing.