To End Soccer Riots, Brazilian Club Forces Fans to Sit Next to Rivals | Hacker News Reader

To End Soccer Riots, Brazilian Club Forces Fans to Sit Next to Rivals

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149 pointsbdehaaff53 comments

Beautifully done. Break down the norms of having the fans shouting at a muddied "them," and possibly start some good long-lasting friendships. I also think that Recife's idea of having mothers of troublemakers, as was linked to [1] is also a pretty clever way of keeping things from getting out of hand. It is rather heartening to see new ways of enforcing civility that aren't based around the use of force.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/brazilian-soccer-club-dep...

Oh dear I can't see this ending well most country's teams that have "ultras" and high levels of violence - there is an underlying political and in some cases religious tradition gong back in some cases 100's of years.

For a dark perspective on this sort of issue (UK, not SA): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Thugs

Right, this is the first thing I thought. For your average-to-serious supporter this will stop them getting swept up in singing (for example) sectarian songs, but Ultras are probably not blessed with this sort of conscientiousness and rational thought.

Reddit would do well to learn from it. Force fatpeoplehate and fatacceptance to post in the same subreddit.

/r/fatpeoplehate has been banned, so I'm afraid it's too late for that.

As a brazilian citizen, I can clarify the hidden reality in this article.

Gremio (Blue Team) and Internacional (Red Team) are teams from the most rich and evolved region of Brazil. The people of the south descend from germans and italians. They love those soccer teams and the culture is grow up with their "rivals"... brothers, cousins, etc, cheering for different teams. It was possible due to cultural reasons, not due to an "experiment".

In Sao Paulo, Southeast region, the culture is not like that, and the favelas and poor neighborhoods have their own criminal factions associated with "organised fan clubs".

Its incentivized, the fans from different teams can't mix up in any place, metros, streets, stadiums... We see deaths everyday, people pushing rivals from metro's windows (causing their deaths)

You can't put people of Palmeiras, Sao Paulo, Corinthias (the worst case) together.

I'm sorry, but your comment is misleading and spread some things that are not true at all.

The only factor on the match between Gremio and Internacional was the "gaucho pride", "we'll set an example for the rest of the country". They are nationalists and the marketing guy played well with that. Remember the chorus on their state anthem: "Serve our achievements as example for the whole Earth".

About Sao Paulo clubs, you said about Corinthians as "the worst case", which is far from the truth. Organized supporters from Palmeiras and Sao Paulo are way more violent, their fan clubes presidents were arrested several times, most of them accused by murder, even during carnival.

So please, if we want to help non brazilians to understand our reality, we got do it with facts.

In Recife (NE Brazil), they hired fans' mothers to 'police' the fans.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2959929/Brazilian-fo...

Brilliant! Funny enough, that's the teams from my hometown. Had no idea they were doing this.

I haven't gone to a match since I was a kid, but remember the constant fights. These are the two main teams in that state, which made rivalry more intense. More than winning, you just wanted for your rivals to lose.

In Australia this (fans of different teams sitting with each other instead of separate) has been normal for AFL (Australian Football League) matches since forever. It creates an atmosphere of friendly rivalry and discussion amongst people sitting near each other instead of animosity. You commonly get some quite funny and friendly banter going on between rival supporters.

Pretty normal for UK Rugby too. I've been the only away supporter sat in the middle of several hundred home supporters without incident (apart from some gentle mockery as we meekly capitulated.)

One of the reasons why this would work is that you'd need to befriend a rival spectator before you enter the arena for the match just to get entry inside the stadium. Spending some time with a rival spectator would make one realize that even the rival team's supporters are football fans too at the end of the day. Great initiative !

This has been working for years in Rugby. The next World Cup won't be segregated either [1].

It makes for a much friendlier environment. Being able to banter with the opposing supporters prevents frustration, and I'm sure is fairly self regulating.

Complete opinion, but throwing abuse at the other side is far more likely to reach fever pitch(..) when everyone around you is shouting the same way. If half of those around you are shouting back that, no, it's you that's the idiot, then it'll come to a natural head far quicker and less violently.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/may/06/fans-not-segreg...

That's cool.

As someone who doesn't follow sports, or anything that I'm purely a nonparticipant in, it baffles me how much people can care about stuff like this, especially enough to injure another human being. It's a crazy thing that it does to the human mind.

"Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice. Their suggestibility is increased to the point where they cease to have any judgment or will of their own. They become very excitable, they lose all sense of individual or collective responsibility, they are subject to sudden accesses of rage, enthusiasm and panic. In a word, a man in a crowd behaves as though he had swallowed a large dose of some powerful intoxicant. He is a victim of what I have called 'herd-poisoning.'"[1]

[1] http://reasontostand.org/archives/2011/01/19/aldous-huxley-o...

Also, for historical interest the blue-green riots in Rome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots

See also Deindividuation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deindividuation

It's not the sport, it's the loyalty and belonging.

I'm South American , been going to games all my life , the people in the pictures aren't the "problematic" supporters... this is pure and utter bs

Next, a solution to the Middle East crisis.

There (and elsewhere) certain parties on both sides do not want a solution. They owe their existence and power to the problem.

I agree. But maybe the people who really want peace can arrange something like this.

I happen to have attended this game and both the article and the video ad are not only misleading but also untruthful. Basically, there was just a small sector (< 10%) of the stadium where fans from both clubs were side by side.

Also, no one was forced to sit next to rivals as they are claiming. Fans of the away team had to be invited by a supporter of the home team in order to join the mixed sector.

Although it was a great initiative, they are trying to make it seem way bigger than it really was.

Will this really work long-term, or is it a short-term disruption? I know that in the NFL (American Football), fans are always integrated, but may become very violent. This is particularly true when there are rivalries of teams in close geographic distance allowing large numbers of fans from both teams to be in attendance. For example, games between the Philadelphia Eagles and NY Giants may be particularly dangerous.

>fans are always integrated, but may become very violent

Sure, but at a much smaller rate and size of mob. Usually its just a few drunk idiots.

If anything college football is worse. Rivalries there run deep, nearly as long as gridiron football has been played in many cases, and often come with family ties.

Combine that with its popularity in the south and the combination of honor culture and largely being dumbasses and theres almost always some fights before/during/after a big rivalry game in the ares where a visiting fan is close to or surrounded by the home team.

That said, its nothing like soccer riots.

I've only been to college games at Notre Dame and VT, and both of those are very segregated stadiums. There's an entire "student" section, a "visiting team" section, and tickets are sold like that.

Thats right, the edges of sections or when a visitor finds himself surrounded by home fans is when things tend to get interesting. But again, its miniscule compared to soccer riots, usually one or two guys who have had too much start a conflict and security usually gets them out before anyone even pushes.

American sports fans are not violent in the same way that Football Ultras are.

Maybe their neighbors should also take note of this - http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/boca-juniors-vs-...

The interesting thing is that in Japan, for baseball, they forcibly separate the home fans and the visitor fans into separate areas. And the cheering is relegated so each side has the opportunity to cheer (while they politely stay quite when it's the other side's turn).

Just like the best way to promote integration of immigrants to have them live among "natives" and not put them in ghettos. Same principle at work, make them realize that they are not so different and they should both respect each other's.

How do they figure out which people are the fans and which are the rivals?

By the shirts, see the video.

Porto Alegre has 2 big teams, fierce rivals. The Internacional dresses in red, the Grêmio dresses in light blue.

First sentence..

> In soccer-obsessed Brazil, going to a match means a chance to see some of the best players in the world—and face the possibility of getting beaten up or even killed.

To say nothing of the sweeping stereotypes here there's also a glaring inaccuracy. Sorry, but by most definitions of 'best players in the world' this is simply false, sadly.

Brazil is perhaps the best example of a country that consistently produces world-class players yet struggles to keep them playing in their domestic league. The best players mostly all go to European clubs.

Don't know why this is downvoted, it's absolutely true and one major symptom of the problems with Brazilian football today.

Except for Santos clinging on to Neymar for a couple years after his talent was widely known, I can't think of many great players who spent a significant amount of time in Brazil at their peak.

As a football (soccer) fan myself, this is one of the things I hate about the hyperbolic media; not withstanding the blatant ignorance of not knowing that none of the top players play in the Brazilian league. Possibility of being beaten or being killed? Gimme a break. Sure there is the occasional riot, hooliganism etc. but you're more likely to die or get injured in a car accident than at a stadium. I'm not belittling the fact that these things happen, it's just the hyperbole that I'm amazed at. I don't see the equivalent reaction when there is trouble in the inner cities, which in essence is same on principle.

Ridiculous measure that destroys the fundamental atmosphere of football and reduces supporters to American style spectators.

Not surprised football haters and Americans (where active support has been removed from the equation anywhere but in college football) here love this.

Why are soccer riots even a thing? Soccer leads the world in fan tomfoolery. Of course I guess after spending 90 minutes and having a game end with a 1-1 tie, I'd riot too.

because its better than watching soccer

Religious , Sectarian, Anti Semitism, Political take your pick

Yeah, the biggest rivalries are typically rooted in some pretty heavy stuff

'Curintiano' detected! :D

I don't understand how this article belongs on Hacker News.

They're breaking (hacking) the established norm, I think it is a perfect fit for this site.

https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

Because it's the classic definition of a "hack", it's a clever solution to an ugly problem. Not everything on HN has to be about javascript frameworks or making millions on startups. It's called "hacker news" not "san francisco tech startup echo chamber news".

How is this a hack? This is ridiculously old psychology. Here's the same "hack" from the 50's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_%28teaching_technique%2...

Just because people on the san francisco tech startup echo chamber news site aren't familiar with it doesn't make it novel, clever, etc..

Or should I just post the jigsaw classroom wikipedia link or a link to the original paper and rake in the upvotes?

On behalf of all of HN, I humbly apologize for there being a top news post of an event whose underpinning idea you had already read about and knew would probably work if it was put into effect in a situation like this. To prevent you from becoming emotionally harmed by potentially trite news, we will make sure never to post or upvote any story whose conclusion you might have guessed the outcome of.

We will continue to upvote every new JavaScript framework and tool, of course. After all, we're not unreasonable.

yesss! the is innovation beyond the mathematic and engineering....

The jigsaw technique is a cool hack. I'd never heard of it. And yep, you should post it. Random wikipedia articles like that make it to the front page all the time.

If upvotes are what float your boat, and others are interested in the article, then why not?

As for the "it's been done before" bit - hacking is often about applying an idea from one area into another area.

But this is not applying an idea from one area to another area -- it's taking the pre-existing idea and just applying it again. There isn't any novelty here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20%22intellectuall...

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