Canine canoodling and football hooliganism one and the same

OUR society often ties itself in inextricable knots in the face of ignorance, fear or prejudice.

I have never regarded football fans regardless of nationality; as the epitome of level-headed calm, intellectual heft nor fair-minded balance.

On the contrary, they have a reputation for boorish behaviour and yob culture. Often on match days, they descend on city centres chanting threats, spewing foul-mouth invectives and kicking dustbins to strike terror in little old ladies struggling with their Saturday shopping.

Such behaviour is not unlike a band of baying banshees that bare their fangs. A pack of snarling hyenas closing in for the kill comes to mind. The animals do it for food; the football fans do it out of ritualistic fervour and sadistic intentions. Worryingly; they are right here in the streets of Shah Alam!

Neither notions of chivalry; grace nor a sense of fairness exist in the tiny box of a head housing so much as a puny pea that passes for brains.

DOLTS….your team L-O-S-T; for heaven’s sakes – live with it!

LOSING THE PLOT

You can’t? Maybe you don’t deserve to be part of the human race then.

Forget the pussy-footing of any well-meaning bleeding hearts. If any of the official sanctions that are being applied to a number of errant Malaysians deemed to have stepped on our collective sensitive toes recently are a guide to live by; then I call on the Home Minister to act in similar fashion.

My instinct for retribution in what for me is as serious as any, a capital crime can be; is to bring out the scalpel and dock them at the bit that hurts. Neutralised and suitably neuteralised (sic); the can then be allowed to watch all the football games they want!

That way they won’t have to run to cissy Sweden to seek solace or be allowed to `diss’ Malaysia from the safety of distance in the USA.

To our credit, quick to react was Minister Khairy Jamaluddin who offered apologies for the actions of the Malaysian fans. Credit to the young minister for correctly interpreting mood of the majority of Malaysians.

While this act of admission and show of contrition is a breath of fresh air; the damage has been done for Vietnamese blood has been spilt.

Any offender should bear in mind that this is the age of the face book posting and the subsequent trial by twitter. I would quake in my boots and pee in my pants if I were that fan in the maroon hoodie putting the foot in on a hapless red-shirted Vietnamese fan half his size.

BOOT ON THE OTHER FOOT

Magnanimous in victory, the Vietnamese ambassador no less assured Malaysians not to fear for their safety when the match is repeated in Hanoi on Thursday.

Personally, I doubt a bunga manggar guard of honour will be mounted to welcome our fans – those who have got tickets and plan to make the trip.

Football scumbags as a tribe exist everywhere. Our own players were subjected to similar treatment in other countries in the past. This treatment we have shown our citizens are capable of simply invites a tit-for-tat reaction.

Solution people?

The fatwa council could and should weigh in. These `sinners’ should be treated with equal opprobrium cast in the direction of canine canoodlers.

Football with its tribalism and all its attendant implications is not a sport to engender peace, tolerant thinking nor any spirit of forbearance. I would go all the way to suggest that these form enough ingredient for suspension or even abolition. We may lose the game of football, but what price humanity?