Bleacher Bits: Fans should be accountable for bad behavior

The title of last week's column was "Sports not a matter of life and death," and was written in response to a few supporters of the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens who made death threats against players who each made costly mistakes in their team's losses.

Unfortunately, it looks like I wrote it a week early.

On Wednesday, after a soccer match between Al-Masry and Al-Ahly played in Port Said, Egypt, a riot broke out and more than 70 people were killed.

Oddly enough, a headline on FoxNews.com Thursday read "Egypt's army, police blamed for deadly soccer riot."

The Associated Press reported that the Interior Ministry said 74 people died and 248 others were injured in what was the deadliest soccer violence worldwide since 1996. At the time of writing, 47 people had been arrested.

Witnesses reported seeing fans stabbed to death while others suffocated, trapped in a narrow corridor while attempting to flee the violence.

Video of the incident is all over the Internet, and shows Al-Ahly players rushing for the locker room as fights broke out among fans swarming the field following the 3-1 win by Al-Masry.

"This tragedy is a result of intentional reluctance by the military and police," said Essam el-Efrian, a lawmaker who said police were complicit in the violence, and that they were trying to show the need for maintaining emergency regulations giving security forces wide-ranging powers.

Before I'm accused of either being ethnocentric for my view of international soccer for thinking, "It's just a game," or not having a full grasp of the political instability in Egypt following President Hosni Mubarak's fall from power, let's look at the facts.

How can anyone blame the police and military for the conduct of the fans? Nowhere on the video footage does it show any police or military officials storming the field, throwing stones or swinging knives or clubs.

While the security presence may or may not have moved quickly enough to quell the disturbance, they did not cause it. You can blame nobody but the rabid soccer fans for their unruly behavior.

And as long as I'm pointing blame, can somebody tell me why any fans would feel the need to arm themselves with clubs or knives when attending a soccer game, or how they got past the entrance when packing weapons?

Fans, or hooligans, caused the riot, as well as the deaths of 74 people — let's call a criminal a criminal.

CONTACT Craig Purcell at 824-1036 or cpurcell@tcnpress.com