Thursday, June 08, 2006

Putting the 'atical' in fan

Long time reader, sometime commenter Detlef e-mail me an interesting article about 3,000 England fans that will be watching the World Cup games involving England from the local police station.

Some people have noted that since an uptake of soccer as the European sport, wars have declined. That European nations fight out their nationalism on the soccer field and not the battlefield. I'm not sure I buy that, but it is very true that soccer fans here get irrational. Elijah Wood even starred in a movie this year about football Hooligans.

Detlef brought up an interesting point about the football banning order. What exactly is the roll of the government in this? These men have been convicted of violent behaviour involving football hooliganism. It doesn't say if these orders ever expire or if one is convicted of hooliganism, you are always a hooligan with no chance for redemption.

So let us discuss...Is it too much for the government to make these men surrender their passports and report to the police station to watch the England games for previous behaviour? Are they guilty until proven innocent?

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