Sparks: Increase in racism during World Cup reflects ‘growing pattern of abuse’
The spectators in the grandstand maintain a most exquisite devotion to the national colours until the young man on the pitch fails to provide them with a trophy, at which point the pack remembers its preference for blood.
These men carry the flag of their country across the field until they stumble, and then the crowd forgets the sweat of their brow and the strength of their limbs to treat them like strangers in their own house.
If a nation claims the glory of a man’s victory as its own, yet casts his personage aside in the hour of his defeat, it proves itself a house divided against the very principles it pretends to defend.
You write of a sporting spirit that unites the world, yet I observe that the men who provide the entertainment are granted a citizenship that expires the moment they miss a goal.
Thousands of people gather to watch twenty-two men kick a ball, and when the ball does not enter the net, they believe this gives them the right to reveal the violence they usually hide behind their hats.
It is quite logical to assume that the trajectory of a leather sphere determines whether a man is a national hero or a biological error, provided one ignores the fundamental nature of both men and spheres.
The record shows that the malice directed at these athletes follows a strict schedule of public failure, proving that the abuse is not an outburst of passion but a calculated reassertion of the old hierarchy.
Does the crowd hate the man because he is different, or do they only find his difference offensive when he fails to provide them with the pleasure of a win?
A man is a brother and a countryman as long as he is running toward the goal, but he becomes a foreigner the minute he stops to catch his breath.
We seek diversion in the stadium to avoid the silence of our own souls, only to find that even in our games, we cannot escape the wretchedness of our own pride.
From the middle of the screaming crowd, the roar of the game sounds less like sport and more like a hunt where the prey is anyone who dares to lose while wearing the wrong face.
They want the man to lead them to the promised land of victory, but they are ready to turn their guns on him the moment the path gets dark and the way gets hard.
There is a fence around the idea of sportsmanship that the modern world is eager to tear down, forgetting that the fence was built to keep the beast of the mob from devouring the players.