Introduction
Sports activities such as football shape social and cultural lives by bringing individuals and communities together. In this regard, football has helped youth in the contemporary world overcome different social challenges by setting aside their internal differences and eventually encouraging them to dialogue on matters bothering them. Recently, the fact that sports arenas are full of football fanatics has attracted my concern, making me furious to understand what inspires such volumes in the fields.
Observing a Local Football Tournament
I decided to attend a five-day football tournament in my city. It was attended by people from all walks of life, different religions, ethnic groups, and different genders. The text will explore social life behaviors and events through football sports and include eradicating racism and ethnic conflicts, tolerating transgender people in society, and avoiding stigmatization of all sorts.
Throughout my five-day engagement in the football tournament, I was keen to understand the degree of ethics from the event, which played a key role in influencing how multicultural people treated and interacted with one another. Some of these aspects include sportsmanship, gamesmanship, and deviance. Therefore, the observation was guided by the question: How do football sportsmanship, deviance, and gamesmanship integrate fairness and generosity amid competition and rivalry?
I attended the tournament and noticed a lot of crispy green turf that could be utilized for something other than the usual warm-ups and practices before a team enters the field. Players from different teams showcased and implemented what they had been practicing as well as experiencing in other sports, as far as competitions are concerned. All the stadiums set for the tournament were intense and exciting, as evidenced by the players and spectators of each team seeking victory (Taylor, Strang, & Disley, 2018). Alongside such excitement, there were several kinds of enjoyment and refreshment as people walked with their drinks and snacks that could take them throughout the period, as they caught up with the football matches.
During the five days of the tournament in the stadiums, I witnessed several things. First, I encountered family members, fanatics, and students supporting their home teams and those affiliated with them for the match’s victory. I made these observations by walking and interacting with various teams and individuals, hence being able to make informed evaluations on what inspired such attendance.
Challenges: Racism and Discrimination in Football
Considering that people from all walks of life attended the tournament, I was shocked that stigmatization and racism still have a place in football. For example, in international football events such as the English Premier League, among other leagues, there exist some cases of racism being reported from the field, and, thus, were present in the tournament (Johnson, 2022).
Personally, I heard some fanatics accusing a black opponent player of calling him a monkey, maybe, because of his outstanding performance and black nature. To my surprise, I witnessed a fan throwing a banana at him from the touchline, which touched my heart to what extent people should think they are more human than others. However, I was impressed by all the players’ concern for the accused player, who sobbed profusely after such mistreatment. It taught me that one virtue, friendliness, means more than what people could realize.
My observations were guided and made easy by the different types of uniforms the players and fans wore for easy identification and to show off their solidarity, hence the gamesmanship. From the cheering, clapping, and opposition, I could easily predict the team one could be supporting, as it happens with international clubs and national teams during events such as leagues and the World Cup, respectively (Güner & Hamidi Sahneh, 2022).
Screaming and loud bangs help me relate to the field occurrences and determine how much one is indebted to the team and the game. While at the tournament, with events taking place, I was able to interview several fans about their inspirations to attend such sports. Some of the responses are overwhelming; for instance, a fan told me he supported a particular team because of one player whose performance was always classy (Güner & Hamidi Sahneh, 2022). Another proclaimed that she hated a particular team because most of its players are black, hence affirming a high degree of racism and superiority.
I also observed how fans could react when a black player outsmarts a white one. Their faces could turn gloomy, indicating that some people are not convinced they are equal to their colleagues, which is the primary reason they compete in the same tournament. The winner is based on the best team and not color or ethnicity. If black fans could showcase common interests to a team like white fans, I observed that such spectators could not set aside their ethnic differences and come together to support their favorite teams (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2018). They were vindicated by the fact that black fans reserved their own seats and could be seen sitting alone with no whites.
Similarly, I could notice the whites seated with their fellow whites, with no black fanatics in their midst, despite having common interests for the team. This is a clear indicator that such fans are not likely to pull down their ethnic bitterness and bury it by coming together to boost the players’ performance by showing support, loyalty, and love, starting from themselves first. After acknowledging that several fans attended the tournament with various roles and reasons, they might be good or bad depending on the circumstances on the field.
Still, in most cases, they are good motives to cheer and support their favorite teams. However, they are the ones who play a key role in determining the general attitude of the stadium (Zhao & Zhang, 2022). This implies that, depending on the motive of the players and fans, I found that every sports activity aspires to unite people, serve recreational services, create enjoyment, and act as stress therapy, among other virtues. However, I can conclude that football has been filled with vices due to competition (Zhao & Zhang, 2022). These include racism, stigmatization, and discrimination.
Conclusion
In summary, most sports events, such as football, have failed to attain the purported purpose of uniting people because some of the cohorts seem to be interested in themselves to the extent of ignoring others. Hence, humiliating them based on their origins, color, and ethnicity eventually shapes the social life in the community. From the various observations made during the tournament, people live according to the situations surrounding them, which in one way or another contribute to some attitudes, becoming their behaviors. Therefore, racial intolerance, ethnic discrimination, gender discrimination, and stigmatization are caused by the attitudes we develop against the people surrounding us through social events like sports.
References
Güner, İ., & Hamidi Sahneh, M. (2022). Dancing with the Stars: Does Playing in Elite Tournaments Affect Performance?. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. Web.
Johnson, K. (2022). Racism in Football Sweden: From the coaches’ perspective. Web.
Kennedy, D., & Kennedy, P. (2018). Grass-roots football, autonomous activity and the forging of new social relationships. In DIY Football (pp. 95-111). Routledge. Web.
Taylor, J., Strang, L., & Disley, E. (2018). Alcohol and international football tournaments. RAND. Web.
Zhao, Y., & Zhang, H. (2022). Sabotage in dynamic tournaments with heterogeneous contestants: Evidence from European football. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching. Web.