The Battle of Ideas 2008 was a two-day festival of high-level, thought-provoking debate organised by the Institute of Ideas and hosted by the Royal College of Art in London. Whilst there many open-ended discussions on a variety of contemporary affairs, from the impending US election to the drink culture in Britain there were two debates that did catch the eye of Libero Football. 

 You’re not singing anymore: is abuse ruining football?

Football is widely accepted as the one area of society where we detach ourselves from reality and are able to behave in a way that isn’t deemed socially acceptable. It is an arena for 90 minutes of tribal warfare. British football crowds have always been known for their banter towards players, managers and opposing fans, according to esteemed members of the game, such as Tony Evans, football editor of The Times, the level of personal abuse has become much worse. The Liverpool supporter claimed that there is a trend that could lead to a regression into the violence of the 70s.

The idea of self regulation came across in the debate a number of times, with many of the panellists and audience claiming all supporters had a responsibility to stop abuse, be it personal, racist or anything. There is not such a thing as acceptable abuse; otherwise it would not be labelled as such. Evans himself did not claim to be the best behaved fan as a young Liverpool fan, singing songs about the 1958 Munich plane disaster, until sitting near the Manchester United box in one North-West derby, where Bobby Charlton sat. Realising the hurt these chants cause, Evans learnt a strong lesson. Yet this learning curve appears in every generation of youth, with each new batch of supporters not realising the impact of their chants, even if they are in jest. Apparently the Chelsea fans sung ‘You robbed from your own dead!’, following on from Kelvin MacKenzie’s disgusting account of ‘the truth’. or something similar at Stamford Bridge, when Liverpool visited. Evans, who was present at Heysel and Hillsborough, passionately condemned this ‘banter’ and rightly so.

The change to all-seater stadiums has not helped the atmosphere at the top level games, and along with the removal of fencing, it has stopped crushes happening and overcrowding from being fatal. Along with this change, the formation of the English Premier League has introduced unprecedented amounts of money into the game. The players on the pitch, used to be local lads, whom the fans could connect to. Now they are arrogant, overpriced players, who have the perfect car, the supermodel partner and the standard £3m mansion. The increase in ticket prices, notably at London clubs, has edged out the typical working class fan, and let in corporate business suits. This estrangement has caused the ‘boo culture’ to ascend these days.

Ashley Cole, who, famously, ‘nearly swerved off the road’ after hearing that a proposed contract offer from Arsenal would be reduced by £5K a week, is a typical example of the disillusioned footballer. When his careless back-pass against Kazakhstan resulted in a goal for the footballing minnows, the Wembley crowd singled him out as Ashley Cole of Chelsea and not England. His previous money-motivated actions were an added incentive to the Wembley crowd to abuse him. The reaction was condemned by Capello and Ferdinand amongst others, but surely, if within in acceptable limits, the fans are allowed to voice their discontent, having paid over the odds for a ticket?

Yet we hear Manchester United fans claim Arsene Wenger is a paedophile, some Colchester United fans chanting some disgusting songs towards Norwich City manager Glenn Roeder, who had suffered a brain tumour. If booing is where the line is drawn, where is the FA action in England for these hideous chants? The Tottenham fans chanting racist and homophobic songs towards Sol Campbell, attempted to get off on a technicality, claiming the ‘hanging’ reference was to how Judas Iscariot died, and not how the Klu Klux Klan hung black men and women in America.

The FA claimed it had no jurisdiction as it was a public order offence, but why not punish the club. It has happened all over Europe, so why can’t the English FA step up and stop being the cowards we all see them to be. We see racism in Europe being condemned, though even then UEFA backtracked on a tough initial sentence on Atletico Madrid, by reducing their stadium ban, the premise is there for a successful system. It is common in Russia, with the Ultras of Zenit St. Petersburg, amongst others institutionally racist and blocking Dick Advocaat’s desire to sign a black player. In Spain, it seems Samuel Eto’o is racially abused every week, this time in Malaga. I guess all we can do is praise the thick-skinned nature of these players.

England should be glad the problem is being eradicated, yet the continued sectarian chanting between Rangers and Celtic fans in Scotland is seen by many as typical of the backwardness of football fans. Violence is seen by many as the next step from abuse and we have seen smatterings of it in the past few weeks. The linesman hit by a coin at Upton Park, the crowd trouble in the Tyne-Wear derby and coins, beer and programmes being thrown on Everton fans at the Emirates from the Upper Tier. The Toffees reacted by throwing similar stuff across towards Arsenal fans in the block next to them.

The abuse is not only to rival fans and players but to referees. One of the forerunners of the ‘Respect campaign, Dermot Collins, stated the shocking number of referees leaving the game annually (7,000 I believe). The abuse to referees is not acceptable, with reportedly 27% of referees reporting physical assault. A huge number of matches at lower levels are played without referees, and so there isn’t much incentive for people to become referees. Though when ‘ghost’ goals, such as that at Watford, are awarded, I think you can excuse some abuse being chanted by the fans.

Are drugs ruining sport?

When you think of drugs in sport, you generally think of athletics and recently the Tour De France, every fan looks to the games with scepticism. When Usain Bolt stormed to the 100m finish line in Beijing (well jogged over…), any commentator could be forgiven for questioning his ability and whether it was aided by artificial means. The idea is that competitors take better drugs than their fellow competitors. Matthew Syed, two-time Commonwealth table tennis champion and former Olympian’s idea that if performance enhancing drugs were legalized, the playing field would be level, as everyone would have the opportunity to take the same drugs. This would be the same as all athletes not taking drugs at all, theoretically that is.

The Anti-Doping Agency came under great criticism from some of the panellists, for their policy on what doping is. They refuse to have a zero-tolerance policy but have a list of drugs which are deemed illegal. This only drives athletes to discover drugs, which can be more easily disguised and more powerful than before. The pressure to win is causing people to drive their bodies further and further to the limit, filling them to the brink with steroids. We see pushy parents driving their children to become 2012 Olympians in London, by making them eat the right foods and forcing them to practise every single day for hours on end. This exploitation and demand of success is what is driving people to drugs in the first place.

Professor Ivan Waddington, of the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences, claims that the most common drug in football is tobacco. While advertising cigarettes on television was banned years ago, by sponsoring sports teams such as in Formula 1, these companies have found a way around the ruling. When we see role models, such as Johan Cruyff (though he has now switched to lollipops since a major health scare), smoking several a day, the exposure of the drug spreads and more in sport. When some footballers are banned for a few months for taking steroids, others are for a year or so. The inconsistency is baffling. Adrian Mutu, who took cocaine, was banned for 7 months and fined £20,000. Yet, despite using the drug for recreational purposes, Chelsea won a ruling by FIFA and Mutu was later ordered to play £13.68m to his former club, a ruling that the Romanian will challenge in the civil courts.

One of the most effective drug use deterrents is the implementation of a health guideline in the Tour De France. The percentage of red cells is known as the haematocrit level (HCT) and it can be increased by injecting EPO (a banned hormone) or by training at altitude. This can improve the performance of endurance sports, but if the percentage of this hormone in the blood is above 55%, the blood can become too thick to effectively pass around the body, greatly increasing the risk of heart attack. At the time, there was not a cost-effective test to find EPO, so rather than spend millions on a blood-urine test, why not legalize all methods of increasing the haematocrit level, and make a boundary at a percentage, of, say 50%? At present it is legal to increase the HCT from 55 to 56 by altitude training, but not from 40 to 41 by using EPO.

Drugs reduce recovery times, but what are more threatening are performance-enhancing drugs, at least according to the Anti Doping agency. These steroids are as artificial as specialist shoes or Red Bull, but the latter two aren’t illegal, are they? These all give advantages to the athlete, but the world of sport is hung up on the issue of drugs instead. There is a race against time as new drugs are developed all the time, ones that are better concealed and improve athletes’ form even more drastically. It’s only a matter of time, before genetics are involved - the GM athlete is very much a possibility.

Lee Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania created mice with up to 30% more muscle mass and strength, by injecting them with the insulin-like growth factor-1 (IFG-1) gene. This gene is already present in humans and stimulates muscle cell production. An extra dose could give an athlete a huge advantage in his sporting field. Gene therapy techniques are being developed worldwide to treat debilitating diseases. It is only a matter of time before someone in sport decides to use it to enhance their performance.

Please visit http://www.oursocietytoday.org/ and comment on the various issues that were discussed this past weekend at the battle of ideas.