Page Two

“The vicious, bloody encounter between British and Italian fans . . . left at least 38 dead and 350 injured.”

“A mob attacked the police, hurled petrol bombs, looted shops and overturned cars.”

“Fighting broke out in a bar. Bottles were thrown, knives pulled and a general battle took place.”

“Clashes with the police, cars overturned, windows broken, foreigners beaten and covered with spit.”

DO THE reports on the opposite page describe the latest coup d’état in a Latin-American country or another terrorist attack somewhere on European soil? No, these and other similar reports are, as one Italian daily put it, of a “terribly ordinary day of sport.”

Sports and violence seem to go hand in hand these days. For example, many still recall the evening of May 29, 1985, when 39 people died and 200 were injured in incidents between fans before the final of the European Champions’ Cup soccer championships.

However, episodes of violence caused by participants and spectators are not restricted to just one sport, such as soccer, but they erupt in all types of sports​—baseball, boxing, hockey.

The sayings, “May the best man win” and, “It is more important to participate than to win,” have become the dinosaurs of the sports world. Why do players and spectators give vent to their baser instincts, to uncontrollable aggressiveness, at competitive sporting events? What is behind the violence in sports? And how serious is the problem?

“SPORT means health” is an old adage. In ancient times Greek doctors claimed that moderate sporting activity could bring good health.

Today, however, many sporting events are anything but healthy for either participants or spectators. Violence in sports has reached such proportions that an authoritative agency, the European Parliament, has approved a lengthy resolution “on vandalism and violence in sport.” Alarmed by the ferocity of clashes before and after sporting events, both between the players and between the fans of opposing teams, the members of the European Parliament examined the phenomenon in its various features, its causes, and possible measures to stem it. What did they find, and what forms has violence in sports taken?

‘A Widespread Phenomenon’

Soccer, the world’s favorite sport, comes in for most of the criticism, but almost all other kinds of sport are involved in the problem. In 1988 violence flared during the European international soccer championships held in Germany. After a game involving their national team, British fans started a raging battle that ended up with wounded policemen, damaged property, and 300 persons arrested. After a victory of the Italian team during the same championships, three people died in a frenzy of enthusiasm.

In Britain infamous hooligans sow panic wherever they go, helping “to destroy the image of English football at home and abroad,” as The Guardian said. And several times during one sports season, the Monday editions of Italian sports newspapers spoke of “black” Sundays​—sporting events that erupt into a fracas of death, injuries, and mayhem. Sports facilities have become, as one daily newspaper put it, “guerrilla stadiums.” But such conditions are not confined to Britain and Italy. The Netherlands, Germany, the Soviet Union, Spain, and many other countries are having to tackle the same problem.

The “War of the Fans”

Certain fans, their aggressiveness whipped up by the mass media, give vent to their baser instincts at sporting events. In soccer the Italian ultrà or the British hooligans gather together behind banners bearing titles such as “Red Army” or “Tiger Command.” The soccer fan, as one hooligan said, “wants to fight, to conquer the territory of the opposition.” In the stands of the stadiums, the conditions are very much like those in the ancient Roman arenas, where the spectators incited the gladiators to slaughter their adversaries. And the chorus of incitement of the fans is punctuated by obscenities and racist slogans.

Fans often carry dangerous weapons. Searches made by the police before the start of some matches have brought to light full-scale arsenals​—knives, flare pistols, billiard balls. Clouds of steel-tipped darts have rained down on the stands of British stadiums!

Government Intervention

The resolution of the European Parliament exhorted governments to take strong measures to stem the violence in sports. The British government, for example, has taken such steps under the direction of its prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Mrs. Thatcher has insisted on the adoption of more stringent laws, such as compulsory identity cards for access to stadiums. If their holders are found guilty of acts of violence, the cards will be withdrawn. Additionally, in Britain there are plans to build or restructure sports facilities to equip them with closed-circuit television cameras for surveillance of the fans, to erect barriers to separate opposing supporters, and to eliminate any inflammable material whatsoever. Policemen have infiltrated gangs of hooligans, the most violent fans, in order to identify their ringleaders and arrest them.

Measures are being taken in other countries too. The Italian sports authorities, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior, have decided to use barbed wire in the stadiums as well as protective netting, helicopters, swarms of policemen, and closed-circuit television cameras. The militarization of stadiums has even been considered. During preparations for the Olympic Games held in Seoul, Korea, in 1988, the authorities had policemen trained to combat terrorist attacks.

Then there are acts of violence aimed at referees. During a recent soccer season in Italy, 690 referees were victims. A referee at a boxing match at the Seoul Olympics was savagely attacked by trainers and even by policemen who did not agree with the decision.

Apart from the danger to people’s lives, there is also considerable economic cost to sports violence. It is not just the doling out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for losses caused by thefts, ransacking, and vandalism but also the costs of prevention. On a normal day on the British soccer calendar, about $700,000 is spent on just police protection.

Why such animalistic aggressiveness?

Violence​—“Intrinsic” in the Way Sports Are Played Today

Today, violent aggressiveness has become linked to sports. Interestingly, the same commission that prepared the resolution adopted by the European Parliament pointed out that “violence is not an essential part of sport, but it is intrinsic in the conditions in which sport is played and in the fact that the rules of the game, if such they can be called, cannot adequately prevent it.” Why is this?

Well, apart from the violent acts of the fans, it is the way in which sport is played that has changed. In society itself, there is “growing violence,” as the European Parliament acknowledged. Also, the sporting world no longer emphasizes only the physical activity. For example, in Athens in 1896, at the first Olympic Games held in modern times, a group of British athletes were disqualified because they had trained before the start of the game. The very act of training before a sporting event was considered contrary to the amateur spirit that was championed at that time. Such an episode today would make most people smile.

After the first world war and especially following the second world war, people living in the so-called developed countries have had increasingly more free time. Recreation has quickly become a lucrative activity for the business world. Financial interests have taken their place alongside national and social interests. Today’s sporting events are “a scenario in which financial, political, and social factors dominate.” In other words, sport has become a “phenomenon of the masses.” Winning often means millions of dollars for the victors! Television has also contributed to the popularity of sports and may have added to sports viciousness. Often the TV camera lingers on violent play rather than on those episodes that are judged mild, repeating it again and again by means of instant replays. Thus TV may inadvertently magnify the effects of sports violence in the minds of future fans and players. Amateur sport hardly exists, and in its place there is “professional amateurism,” as one periodical called it, speaking of the tens of thousands of dollars earned by athletes in Seoul during the 1988 Olympics.

Nationalism makes athletes, trainers, managers, and spectators attach an exaggerated sense of importance to victory. Following certain international sporting events, triumphal honors are pinned on the winning side, just as when victorious commanders returned home in ancient times. This has been seen in recent years in Italy, Argentina, and the Netherlands, where the athletes literally fight to the last breath, unscrupulously. And the fans ape them, going to excess in their show of loyalty to their team or their nation, stirring up raging battles before, during, and after the sporting event.

Before the start of the 1988 European international soccer championships, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel said that there was fear that this event would become an “ideal breeding-ground for a highly explosive mixture of aggressiveness, nationalism, and neo-Fascism.”

Another Form of Violence

But this is not all there is to violence in sports. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the “doping scandal” broke out. Doping, or the use of illegal drugs that heighten the energy levels of athletes and allow them to reach performance superior to their normal physical abilities, does violence both to the sporting spirit and to the health of the athletes.

“Steroids constitute a growing threat to our national health and safety.”​—U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official

MILLIONS of spectators watching the Seoul Olympics were shocked. Their hero, the athlete who ran the world’s fastest 100-meter race, was stripped of his gold medal, disqualified for the use of prohibited substances.

Thus another plague has infected sports​—doping, so difficult to root out that it has been termed “the AIDS of sport.”

“The Medicine Olympics”

It seems that it was mainly after the second world war that some athletes began using drugs in sports. Now, though, according to experts, the use of drugs among athletes is so widespread that it necessitates “complicated and costly organizations, often founded by the sports federations themselves, with the clear aim of obtaining prestigious results, attracting sponsors, making money, gaining power.” The phenomenon is so widespread that Corriere Medico, an Italian medical periodical, called the 1984 Los Angeles games “the Medicine Olympics.”

In fact, the use of drugs and other illegal therapies to gain, unfairly, the competitive edge plagues many sports in all countries. Each country wants to surpass the others, so no one wants to stop giving drugs to athletes. In a timely way, the European Parliament pointed out that “the ambitious expectations and frequent sporting events keep an athlete under such pressure as to increase the temptation to make use of more or less legal means of maintaining good physical and psychological form. The temptation is also made greater by the fact that sports trainers have few scruples.” Doping is even practiced on young boys.

Various Forms of Doping

Various forms of doping exist. For example:

Steroids, the drugs involved in what has been defined as “the most serious event in Olympic history,” the disqualification at Seoul of the 100-meter record holder, Ben Johnson. These are substances that, by influencing the production of amino acids, contribute to the increase of muscle mass and strength as well as to an increase in aggressiveness. It is said, for example, that all the world weight-lifting records set in the last ten years can be attributed to the use of these substances.

Stimulants, such as caffeine and strychnine, used to increase alertness and delay fatigue.

Narcotic analgesics, to kill pain and to induce calmness.

Beta blockers, substances that, by slowing the heartbeat and steadying the body, are used particularly by archers and marksmen.

Diuretics, for rapid weight loss and for masking the presence of other prohibited substances at the time tests are made.

These are just some of the well-known substances used in doping, but the International Olympic Committee has drawn up a list of about a hundred prohibited drugs. The problem is that as soon as one of them is banned or methods are developed to detect its presence, whole teams of doctors and chemists set to work to produce others.

However, there are still other ways in which athletes try to improve their performance dishonestly. In order to better their position in the water, some swimmers have had their intestines filled with helium gas.

Many athletes have admitted receiving blood transfusions to improve their endurance. According to some, by means of a transfusion of their own red blood cells, drawn from them some time previously, the flow of oxygen to all parts of the body, muscles included, is improved.

Press sources have recently revealed that some women athletes have used pregnancies as a form of doping. Pregnant women experience an increase in blood volume, and this in turn increases the conveyance of oxygen to the muscles. Some women athletes, especially those taking part in sports where great physical strength is required, have taken advantage of the initial stages of pregnancy in order to improve their performance. After the games, they have an abortion.

A Serious Problem

But how widespread is the problem? Judging by the rare occurrences in which athletes are disqualified for the use of drugs, some fans might think that only a small percentage of athletes resort to doping, and certainly their idols would never do anything of the sort. But those who are acquainted with the sports world see things differently.

“The use of anabolics is much more widespread than is commonly thought,” said a former discus thrower from Italy. And according to Professor Silvio Garattini, an expert in pharmacology, the problem of doping is probably much more serious than has been thought. According to some sources, 50 percent of the more physically endowed athletes make use of prohibited substances.

The Risk to Athletes

But the problem of doping does not lie simply in that better performance can be obtained by unfair means. Today’s athlete, and especially the one who takes drugs, is part of a much larger, though hidden, team, which includes doctors able to prescribe forbidden substances if necessary. However, it is the athlete who pays the consequences​—the shame of being found out or disqualified and, more important, the serious health risks.

It is believed that anabolic steroids cause damage to the liver and to the cardiovascular system as well as produce various other secondary physical effects. These drugs are also held responsible for damage to the urogenital system, and for the violent personality of some athletes.

The abuse of other drugs, such as stimulants, provokes a “state of confusion, toxic dependence, visual hallucinations.” As for blood transfusions, the scientific periodical Doctor points out that the infusion of an athlete’s own red blood cells is not without risks. One of these is the “overloading and the reduction of the blood flow in certain areas caused by the increase of the viscosity of the blood” and the accumulation of iron “with negative consequences for the parenchyma (liver, kidneys, heart, endocrine glands, etc.).”

The victims of doping, at least those who are known, are numerous. A few of the more well-known cases are Danish cyclist Jensen, who died during the 1960 Rome Olympics; British cyclist Tom Simpson, who died during the 1967 Tour de France; the Dutch middle-distance runner Augustinus Jaspers, who died right after a race at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984; the West German Birgit Dressel, a heptathlete who died, was poisoned by the drugs prescribed to her for years by a sports doctor.

“Sport has no pity,” said Carl Lewis, several times an Olympic champion. “Doping has already claimed its victims. The organizers know about it and say nothing.”

And yet, even though aware of these disturbing facts, how do athletes answer the question: “If I could give you a pill that would make you an Olympic champion but that would kill you within a year, would you take it?” Of U.S. athletes interviewed, 50 percent said yes. And this same answer would probably be given by many athletes in other parts of the world.

When Will It All End?

ENGAGING in refreshing physical activity is pleasurable and healthful. But unfortunately, being participants or even only spectators at a sporting event often means being sucked into an extremely violent, and oftentimes drug-filled, world.

Modern-day sport is merely one expression of that violent world. Speaking of the incidents in Belgium in 1985 that caused the deaths of 39 persons in the stands of a football stadium, philosopher Emanuele Severino said: “It is generally agreed that events like the one at Brussels occur because of people’s growing lack of belief in certain fundamental values of our society.” Then he added: “The violence of our time does not originate with the absence of values but with the presence of new values.”

New Values in Sports

What are these new values mentioned by Professor Severino? One is the narcissism of the athletes that makes champions “demigods.”

Then there is nationalism and the resultant political implications. The magazine L’Espresso states: “Sport has become a great vehicle for social promotion. The more victories it wins, the more a nation is considered.”

Money is also one of the new values that has become part of the sporting world. Considerable financial and commercial interests​—television-transmission rights, publicity, lotteries, and sponsorships—​ensure “unscrupulous competition,” even among the sportsmen themselves. A former soccer player said that soccer “is no longer a game. It’s just a business.”

The prevailing principle is victory at all costs, and according to the new values of today, this means everything​—from violence both on the field and in the stands to the violence caused by fans before and after the game, from doping and its lethal effects to unfairness and unscrupulousness. The sporting spirit, so-called fair play, seems to have become a thing of the past. Will it ever return? Judging by what is said, people hope so, but the facts are anything but encouraging.

Drugs and Violence​—Will It Ever End?

As Professor Severino admits, violence in sports is only one aspect of a more generalized violence that torments modern society. What is the cause of so much violence? A Bible prophecy helps us to understand the problem. Speaking of the last days of this wicked system of things, the apostle Paul listed the following traits: ‘Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, disloyal, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures.’ And he added: “Wicked men and impostors will advance from bad to worse.”​—2 Timothy 3:1-5, 13.

This present world, the Bible explains, “is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) Satan the Devil is “the wicked one” who corrupts good things, such as wholesome sporting activities. He is the one responsible for the violent spirit. He also foments the nationalism, the selfishness, and the greed that have ruined society and sports.

But as individuals, we do not have to give in to that demonic spirit. We can, through application of Bible principles, “strip off” our old personality with its wrong practices, including violent manners, and put on “the new personality,” which produces peaceful fruit.​—Colossians 3:9, 10; Galatians 5:22, 23.

Will there ever be an end, though, to violence and doping in sports? Most certainly! When? When the violence and drug abuse in society come to an end. The present increase in wickedness indicates that the time is at hand!​—Psalm 92:7.