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by api 458 days ago
People getting riled up about soccer as a way to blow off steam and experience their tribalism is vastly superior to what we have in the USA -- a political environment that people treat like battling football clubs complete with lawless hooligans.

When a soccer team wins they don't get to ascend to power and leverage the state against their enemies.

3 comments

Surely you're talking about a District Attorney deciding that an individual needs to be charged prima facie and saying he "will find a crime" right?
I expect that's not what they were talking about, but I bet what you are talking about can happen just about anywhere.
I'm sure it could and it's wrong everywhere.
District Attorneys everywhere charge first and then prove the crime afterwards, right?
Well typically a case is referred to them by law enforcement or a criminal complaint, then they review the evidence and decide whether or not to go to trial.

It's much rarer for a DA to say they want to find crimes a particular person committed and then direct others to go find evidence for whatever they can find evidence for.

Which DA went after a particular person without referral by law enforcement or a criminal complaint? If this was really such a breach of ethics, surely it would be trivial for the political party in question to first make a criminal complaint? It's not obvious to me that the complaint/referral matters much?
I don't know how much of this tribalism is confined to the stadium. Personal experience makes me feel like there is a big overlap between Ultras and actual nationalists, but I'd like to see a study.
> When a soccer team wins they don't get to ascend to power and leverage the state against their enemies.

I mean, FIFA is corrupt as hell and there's been plenty of documented cases of other social ills caused by European soccer fandom, but okay.