AVASH BHANDARY
The fist fights at Pokhara Stadium last week during a National League match between Manang-Marsyangdi vs New Road Team (NRT) was just the latest in a long history of sports hooliganism in this country. It was the players who turned a football match into a boxing knockout, but in many cases it is over-excited (or stoned?) fans that take to stone-throwing as happened after the Americans beat Nepal in a cricket qualifier at the TU grounds last year.
Violence is embedded in the beautiful game, second only to combat sports. Football metamorphosing itself into foot-brawl is nothing new, and goes as far back as the SAFF Championship in Kathmandu in 1997 with the Maldivian and Sri Lankan teams engaged in open warfare in the field. The Holland-Portugal match in 2006 World Cup was another classic international case.
The Nepali media condemned the players involved in Pokhara and ANFA banned them. The seemingly “one off” incident has to do a lot with the nature of competitive sports in our age in general.
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting,” George Orwell once wrote. Indeed, the patriotism that comes out at various sports meets borders on tribalism.
Manang and NRT are amongst two richest clubs in our league, and pressure to win among players is understandable. Some accused Manang of creating unnecessary trouble and controversy even during the Martyrs’ Memorial ‘A’ Division last time. Late into the match when, scoring or preventing the opponent from scoring becomes the only thing that matters, discipline and fair play are easily forgotten.
Coaches lamented the lack of discipline and professionalism among players and so did some journalists. The fans’ perspective didn’t come through, but they probably sided with their teams and the neutral onlookers took voyeuristic pleasure in the free “entertainment”.
Violence is an integral part of any intense competition and football is not an exception. In Nepal, sports hooliganism is just the manifestation of the general impunity in society and the frustration of the young with the general political and economic stagnation of the country.