Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
It's pretty clearly aimed at insinuating Christianity causes violence, given that Rhy and I were explicitely saying Football does.
Pure nonsense.

It was aimed at ridiculing your claim that football causes domestic violence. I was reminding Rhy that the case against christianity would be as good as the case against football - but then again, I don't believe that football causes violence. And I don't believe that christianity itself causes violence. Idiots watching football? Sure, they can get violent. Idiots preaching at a church? Sure, they can encourage violence. None of them represent the mainstream of either.

Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
As to crime, racism etc. Football worsens those, especially when national teams are involved.
Nonsense again. Football is more than the elites. Football is about the millions of children who play the game. Those you see on the telly is just a tiny bit of what football is about. Football worsens racism and causes violence? No. Some supporters show obvious racism and get violent when watching football. But those are people who already are racist and violent, they would've caused the same trouble with or without football. They use a football match as their excuse to get violent - if not for football, they would've found another excuse.

And again, that's a tiny tiny part of what football is about. For the majority of football players, the millions of children, football represent teamwork, joy, tolerance, a feeling that they're mastering something... I could go on for pages.

Take Norway Cup. I remember my last year in that cup, in the last game we were knocked out by a side from Ghana. We were soundly thrashed, it's the only time I've actually been dizzy after trying to stop a striker... You think anyone on my team thought of africans as sub-humans or whatever after that experience? No, we gained a respect for them. An immense respect.


And if you find a Norwegian who doesn't want Carew on the national side because he's black, or a swede who doesn't want Ibrahimovic because he's muslim.... Well, then you've probably found yourself one of the world's most hardened racists.