Around the web – August 14
So I still don’t have a witty-soccer-related-name for this feature yet…
- Amongst the Red Bulls fans (New York Observer)
- Fan attacks player in Turkey (The Offside)
- St. Louis’ bid for MLS (MLSnet.com)
- It gets worse at the Meadowlands (The Metrologist)
- Leeds fans anticipate another great year (The Guardian)
- Let’s Kick Out Bigotry (BBC News)
- More on the violence in Argentina (River Plate Offside)
- And even more on the violence in Argentina (Hasta El Gol Siempre)
The Turkish story is an interesting one, as it appears that the real story is the foul and not the pitch invasion.
The target of the two footed lunge is Sivaspor’s Israeli player Pini Balili. The lunger is Trabzonspor’s Egyptian Ayman Abdelaziz. And Balili has now gone public with an accusation that the foul was religiously motivated and that he has suffered similar abuse from certain other Muslim players (including Abdelaziz) since he arrived in Turkey a few years ago. According to today’s Gazzetta dello Sport, the president of Sivaspor is threatening to submit a formal complaint to UEFA over Turkish referees failing to protect Balili from such “racist” attacks.
The Gazzetta story (in Italian, of course) is at: http://www.gazzetta.it/Calcio/Estero/Primo_Piano/2007/08_Agosto/14/balili_1408.shtml
maybe it could be called ” it’s in the (inter)net!”