The UEFA Euro 2020 Final was a football match that took place on 11 July 2021 at the Wembley Stadium in London. Originally scheduled for 12 July 2020, the tournament had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The match was contested by Italy and England. Italy won the final 3–2 on penalties, following a 1–1 draw after extra time. Italy won the European Championship since their first win in 1968. While the world was rejoicing Italy’s feat, it didn’t go well with England fans who were furious at their favourite team’s loss. Violence gripped the streets of London as England fans attacked Italian fans.
Sports are one of the things that people across the world take pleasure in and bond over. Sports can be wonderful, beautiful thing. However, they can also be incredibly toxic. Sports fans can generally be seen as loud and annoying and obnoxious about their team. This is a fair observation, and it’s perfectly fine and usually harmless to be outspoken about your support for your team. However, when your team wins or loses and you start to riot and overturn cars in the street, then it becomes a problem. It’s one thing to be decked out in your team’s colours, cheering on the players. It’s another thing however, to shout and celebrate in the street when your team is victorious. But property damage is crossing the line into the reckless kind of behaviour that needs to stop.
Pre-match, the Wembley stadium had to be briefly locked down after hordes of ticketless fans had breached sections of the stadium and stormed the concourse. Fences were torn down and thrown aside, with multiple eyewitnesses suggesting thousands had pushed in. This breach prompted violence and videos surfaced, capturing an adult punching a kid in the head inside the stadium, while a group of men kicked an Asian male while he was on the floor.
People need to take a step back and realize there are more important things in the world. People get into this weird state of mind where they put on the fan goggles and all rational thought goes out the window. Online platforms make it even worse. People can be downright nasty to other people for the sake of “the sport.” People will curse out others and send them hate and threats just because their opinions are different, they support another team, or they don’t like their team. Post the final, the England team football players Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford were subjected to racial abuse online after missing penalties which contributed to England’s Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy. The three football players took the last three penalties – two of which were saved – during England’s 3–2 loss on penalties, and were all immediately targeted with racist language and emojis on their social accounts.
Sport in its purest form is a great display of athleticism that can be fun and rewarding to watch, but hinging your entire existence upon it and using it as an excuse to be a gross, terrible person is something that needs to be gone from sports and sports culture. Afterall at the end of the day, it’s just a game.
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