Racism In Soccer

Overview

Racism is becoming a growing issue in modern day soccer. You would think that we all have moved on and quite frankly, grown up, but it turns out that some people haven’t. Racism is seen on all sorts of playing fields in the “beautiful game”. You see the fans mocking players and making money noises and gestures at them. Some fans have even gone to extremes, like bringing in a Nazi flag and holding it up during the game. And now its not just the fans, it’s the players too. We have seen famous players like Luis Suarez and John Terry saying racist remarks to black players, these players are people that kids look up to. What’s a good role model if they are depicted being a racist. Some players have also been either suspended or banned for actually hailing as their goal celebration. Some players just commit dirty fouls on the black players, which has happened to Italian soccer player, Mario Balotelli.

The Fans

Where the fans are is where most of the racism lies. Fans seem to go to some extremes that we haven’t seen before. We have seen countless cases of fans having racist flags and even some Nazi flags being held up at the games. This is most commonly in Russian league games bust has popped up in a Real Madrid game as well. Four fans were escorted out of the game for holding up a Nazi flag during one of the teams games in 2015. Although we see things like this happening there are fans that take their actions outside the stadium. In 2015 a group of Chelsea fans were on the subway train when a black PSG supporter attempted to board the train, but was shoved out numerous times by the Chelsea supporters. They then began to chant “yeah we’re racist, yeah we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it”. Angered by this, the Chelsea club found out who the gentlemen involved by a video that was recorded, and the men were revoked of their season tickets without refund. Fans from West ham made a video mocking the Chelsea fans. In the video a black man asked if he may board the train, the white gentlemen responded “on you come lad, this is how we do it in West ham”. This sparked a lot of laughs and really made the situation lighter, but do not think that all was forgotten. So the fans seem to be the most involved for the racism in soccer.

The Players

It’s not only the fans and supporters that are partaking in racism. There have been many cases where the players have either make racist remarks or gestures during a game and to the opposing players. John Terry, Chelsea’s defender, has been tagged a racist players for saying plenty of racist remarks to black players  during games. They don’t seem to like it, but Terry said it’s just to mess with them while we play the game, I mean nothing. Luis Suarez has also been accused of saying a racist remark to, at the time Manchester United’s, Patrice Evra. However the was a case where a young player in Greece scored a goal for his club, then proceeded to the corner to celebrate and hailed into the crowd of people. This player was Giorgos Katidis and he was banned for life because of his celebration. This is the correct action for me, I would have done the same to the offender, and there should be no complaints. Mario Balotelli, and Italian, has also suffered from racism multiple times in his career. One of the worst moments was when he was dribbling the ball in the corner, when a player came from behind and at full power kicks Balotelli in the back of his leg, then calls him the “n” word and walks away. The player was red carded then later was suspended.

Player Dani Alves said that fighting racism in soccer is a “lost cause”, what about you?

The Hillsborough Disaster

Pre-Conditions and Vulnerabilities

This game was for the FA Cup Semi-Final, which is a big couple in English soccer. Liverpool is a very well known club and has many supporters, and the field that the game was being held on, was not the largest of stadiums to hold the capacity of what Liverpool was used to at Anfield. But the reason for the disaster really came down to poor execution by the police force at the game, they then made it worse by denying that they were to blame for the disaster.

The Story

On April 15, 1989 the worst disaster in soccer took place. The game was between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, England. The entry at the stadium was only possible via one of the seven gates. Police Chief Superintendent, David Duckenfield ordered an exit gate to be opened. The opened exit gate led to a tunnel which then led to already overcrowded enclosures, which cause the crushing of the fans. The crush barrier then broke and the fans began to fall on top of each other. The game only lasted six minutes. When the FA chairman visited the control box to find out what had happened, Duckenfield lied and told him that the fans opened the gate.

                   96 Deaths 

                  766 Injured

Age Range	Total	Males	Females
10-19	38	36	2
20-29	40	36	4
30-39	12	11	1
40-49	3	3	-
50-59	1	1	-
60-69	2	2	-
Totals	96	89	7

Post Disaster 

There was a service at the Hillsborough stadium for the victims and their families. There was also a disaster appeal fund that was set up as well. After the first week the fund raised about £1 million. After that they kept getting more money, and ended up with a total of £12 million raised.

All 96 victims pictures (below)

Many people were angry about this and wanted all stadiums to make sure that something like this doesn't happen ever again. Teams funded money into making their stadiums more supportive so that this would not happen to any of them or ever again. As of right now we aren't seeing any problems of this nature with the fans but it could happen again.

The Death Penalty

About

The death penalty is the punishment of execution administered to somebody legally convicted of a crime. Sometimes on the news we see somebody who has been sentenced to the death penalty and this was administered by a court of law in which the convicted person was proven guilty of a severe crime. Sometimes the Death Penalty can be a good thing and the court was right about the ruling but there are many others that the courts

wrongly killed someone. This is why this is a very controversial topic among most people.

Pro Death Penalty

The argument for the support of the Death Sentence is that justice is done in killing the person. This is true in many cases and most people do believe that this is justice or even for some revenge. Say a person is convicted of killing a family of 4. This would definitely go to court had the person been detained. If the court feels that this person is guilty of the crime and there is evidence, then should this crime not be punished with the death penalty? So in many cases the death penalty seems to be like a good idea if the person is correctly convicted and the crime is deserving of a punishment like so. 

Against Death Penalty

The argument against the Death Penalty is that there are other means of punishment and certain cases shouldn’t call for it. There have been many cases where in which somebody was wrongly sent to death and they didn’t figure out until years later that the person was actually not guilty. There have been many cases where they thought they had the right person convicted but later ran DNA tests and realized that they had killed an innocent man.

Here is a situation that may be controversial. Say a 10 year old boy kills 3 other kids and meant to do so. Should this be worthy of say the Death Penalty or should this 10 year old be locked up. That is why the Death Penalty is a very controversial topic amongst the people. 

My Opinion

I personally am not leaning more towards one side. To me sometimes I feel that the Death

Penalty is both necessary but sometimes since they do get some wrong, the person being convicted should have some actual hard evidence saying that sed person did the crime. Sending a person to death cant already be easy for somebody to do, but then finding out that the person that was killed, was actually innocent must really take its toll on those who do so. 

Now running for president, Bernie Sanders has always wanted to abolish Capitol Punishment or the Death Penalty. Recently, he brought this up and now he is getting more recognition for this, he stated that "The state shouldn't be in the business of killing people".

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_sentence

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/bernie-sanders-on-the-death-penalty-the-state-shouldnt-be-in-the-business-of-killing-people/

http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=18

Solar Panels

What are they?

           A panel designed to absorb the suns rays as a source of generating heat or electricity.

Energy Production
         
           Solar panels are becoming a very popular innovation in energy. Solar panels are one of the best innovations because they save you more money rather than paying for electricity due to the sun being the key component in this. Solar panels create no waste due to them being basically just a solar panel and all they have to do to work is be in a place that is sunny most of the time. But when people get rid of them, there really isn’t a correct way of disposing of them. Mainly because we haven’t seen many of them being thrown away. Solar panels are pretty costly to install and to pay for but no government investments will really be needed other than the production of them.

Transmission

           The people who own the solar panels can choose how the energy is distributed but the energy is wired through to the set areas that it needs to be in. There are more efficiencies that can be done and some of those are that they are trying to make each individual solar panel stronger so that they can hold more space and energy. They are centralized systems because they are the main root for the energy.

Consumption

           The good thing about the solar panels is that the energy is produced by itself for the consumer and the consumer pays a very little price such as $30 a month rather than the usual $100 or more per household. They can curb demand in that of the pricing of some, some people understand that they are expensive and are not willing to pay for something like that, when they don’t know that you actually save more money because you are producing your own energy.

Australia to Create the World's Largest Marine Reserve

Australia says it will create the world’s largest network of marine parks. These reserves will cover 3.1 million square kilometers of ocean including the Coral Sea. There will be some restrictions placed on fishing and oil and gas exploration in the protected zone. Last year, the Australian government announced its plans to protect the marine life currently in the Coral Sea which has an area of nearly 1 million square kilometers. The sea off of the Queensland coast in the northeastern part of Australia is home of sharks, tuna, tropical reefs and deep sea canyons. I t holds three US navy ships sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.

Benefits

Some benefits of having this area for the marine life is protection of some species. All around the world sharks are being caught by fisherman and getting their fins cut off in order for the fisherman to make money off of it. Taking away a sharks fins kill them resulting in a large decrease in shark population all around the world. Currently a lot of countries are banning shark fining and this is doing very well for them so far. This will also mean that there will be limited oil and gas exploration rather than companies just coming in whenever and searching for a new spot to possibly find oil. This will decrease the chance of having a devastating oil spill such as the United States saw during the BP oil spill. Also having limited fishing also keeps the numbers of fish even within the wild. In the wild there is a food chain and that needs to be in tact because if one species dies off or is caused to go extinct due to fishing, then that could mess up the whole entire ecosystem of the ocean life. Having this can also help prevent shark attacks in Australia. This can happen because the sharks wont have to be closer to shore to hunt for food, they can stay within the reserve and be able to live there.  

*Pictured above* These are all shark fins, lined up and ready to be made into various different things

Video

http://www.gansbaai.com/docs/9275/No-Shark-Fin.gif 

Globalization of Soccer

The Creation

Soccer dates as far back as 2500BC with the Greeks, Egyptians and Chinese playing a foot based game involving a ball. Some games included possessing the small ball longer than the other team would. The Chinese seemed to have the first modern type version of the game and called this ‘Tsu-Chu’ or ‘kick ball’. The group credited for this was the Tsin Dynasty (255-206BC) where the soldiers would play a training activity where a leather ball was kicked into a net strung between two poles. The only difference was that the new was strung 30 feet from the floor. So our modern game that many people have come to love dates back almost 4600 thousand years ago.

Soccer Since Then

Soccer has come a long way in 4600 years. Soccer now is the most popular sport among the world. The biggest event in all of soccer is the World Cup, which happens every four years and in a different country every time. The first official World Cup took place in 1930 in Urugay. This was made because the 1932 Olympics did not include soccer so they made the World Cup. Uruguay, who was the best at the time, won the tournament beating Argentina 4-2 and became the first official team to win the World Cup. The World Cup has evolved into now the most watched sporting event ever. Over 1 billion people tuned into the 2014 World Cup Final with Germany facing Argentina. Germany won the game in the 112’ with a goal scored by the late substitution in that of Mario Götze. That was the game winning goal that won Germany the World Cup. Argentina played well against them. Argentina does have one of the best players in the World, which is Lionel Messi. He led his team to the World Cup Final but it just wasn’t enough. There are also trophies that teams can win. Every country has their own leagues and the winners at the end of the season get a trophy. There is also the UEFA Champions League which is the biggest team tournament in Europe and all around the world. FC Barcelona has recently won the UEFA Champions League and completed the "treble" which means they won the three biggest trophies a team can win in one season. They became the only team in history to get two trebles.

Everyone has their opinions in every sport of who the best players of all time are. For soccer there have been so many great players and if you were to see these players play in some of their finest games you would be truly amazed and impressed with these men. Every ere has had their best and some teams have always stood out such as FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Bayern Munich and many others. Some of these players have set records in scoring, appearances, assists and wins. Many factors go into deciding who the best players of all time are. The Ballon D'or is the award given to the player who has played the best during that season. Before the Ballon D'or, the FIFA Player of the Year award was given out. That is the highest individual honor that someone could get, but the best player should also be a leader and get other awards for their team such as a World Cup victory or a UEFA Champions League trophy. 

My Top 5 Players of All Time

1. Lionel Messi

2. Pele

3. Cristiano Ronaldo

4. Ronaldinho

5. Thierry Henry

Best Players and Goals (Video)

Sources
http://worldsoccer.about.com/od/Soccer-History/a/Who-Invented-Soccer.htm
http://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/who-we-are/history/first-fifa-world-cup.html

Relegation vs. Promotion

In every sport there are various different leagues. For soccer, each country has their own levels of leagues. We might only know of the best ones but there are about 3 leagues per country in most sports. Each of these teams got to their positions by being either relegated or promoted. Teams want to be promoted to the point where they play in the top division such as the Barclays Premier League or maybe even the La Liga BBVA. Players want to make it to the highest league so they can move to the bigger teams and then make more money.

The effects of relegation and promotion can be either good or bad. Sometimes we see a club go completely bankrupt because they have moved down leagues. But there is also teams that can come out of nowhere and do extremely well and move their way up to the top division.

Promotion

In 2002, the Football Association allowed the club Wimbledon F.C. to move to Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. The team that came to Milton Keys was then called the Milton Keynes Dons. The fans from Wimbledon F.C. bought the club back thus creating two teams. The MK Dons have then moved themselves up the ranks and currently they are in the Football League Championship. We could see the rise of the club and see them in the top division. The team started from the bottom being relegated from years finally was good enough to keep moving forward. Promotion is good, because players and the club are making more money and they get more recognition.



Relegation

No team wants to hear that their club has been relegated to a lower division, but it has to happen every season. As much as it breaks our hearts, it makes for a very fun thing to watch. In the early 1990’s, the Barclays Premier League had a dominant team in that of Leeds United. Leeds United showed great promise among the league, signing players such as Eric Cantona, Alan Smith, Fabian Delph, and many others that were and now are very good players. They were the dominant team until their after their Champions League semi-final season. We saw the team not being able to pay their big players, so they started selling some players and before you knew it they were relegated the whole way to Football League 1, which is two levels down from the Premier League. Since then the team has started to come back making their up to the Football League Championship and have been doing well but not enough to be promoted yet. After this all happened, a new famous term has been popularized around England called Pulling A Leeds. Basically it is used when a club shows financial mismanagement. But relegation can affect even the best of teams. 

We also see some great clubs that are very close to getting relegated. This happened to Borussia Dortmund, a club in Germany. In the past couple of years in the German Bundesliga there have been two powerhouses, they were Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. Dortmund had their three big super stars Marco Reus, Mario Gotze, and Robert Lewandowski. Bayern then bought Gotze and Lewandowski. Bayern tried to get Reus but he was loyal to his club. The two clubs played for the 2014 Bundesliga title. Bayern finished on top with a 2-1 victory. Both teams had high hopes because of their previous success. Reus was hurt during the season which also led the team to not play well for the coming season as he was their star player. Last season Dortmund and Reus were not clicking, and found themselves at the bottom of the table and almost saw their team being relegated. Near the end of the season the club pulled it back together and kept themselves in the division. This season they have come out very well and are currently 4-0 at the top of the German Bundesliga. They have a very good team now including world class players such as Marco Reus, Pierre Emerick Aubamayang, Mats Hummles and many more. So we see the scare of relegation force teams to start clicking and playing well. 

The debate about Relegation vs Promotion is whether it should still be a thing or if it should be terminated, forcing teams to stay in their current position. I personally believe that it should remain as it is. It would not benefit the lower level teams if they were forced to stay where they are because they would stay making very little money and most players would not want to play for a team where they aren’t getting a good fan base. 

Everyone has their viewpoint on this topic. 

Whats Yours?