As histórias de viagens 2: Porto football riots

Bom dia! In this second part of sharing stories from my trip to Portugal, I am going to talk about something that happened in the city of Porto - there was a football match between two English teams: Manchester City and Chelsea on the 29th May. I need to do a disclaimer at this point: I hate football, I go out of my way to avoid football. I did not go to Porto for the football match which took place a day before my arrival in Porto - in fact, I had absolutely no idea that the match was taking place at all. When the opportunity to travel to Portugal for a holiday presented itself, it was then a choice of visiting Porto, the second biggest city of Portugal in the north of the country, Faro in the deep south with amazing beaches or even flying to one of the islands like the Azores or Madeira to experience a different kind of sub-tropical island holiday. In the end, I settled for Porto because I enjoy my city breaks a lot more than a beach holiday - so I had booked a holiday in Porto whilst being totally unaware of this football match that was due to take place. When I finally realized, I thought that most football fans would have departed the day I arrived but I was wrong - since I had arrived on a Sunday, many of the football fans had decided to extend their stay in Portugal to return on the Monday or Tuesday, especially since it was a public holiday in the UK on Monday the 31st of May; and unfortunately it was so ugly, I did not like what I had witnessed. 

I'm afraid British tourists have a terrible reputation abroad - they are rude, monolingual and do not follow the rules. Okay, I suppose the same thing can be said about Russians, Americans and Chinese tourists but two wrongs don't make a right. I was so appalled with the behaviour of the British tourists that I would only speak to my husband in French in public (there were actually a surprisingly large number of French tourists in Porto at the same time) because I didn't want to let the Portuguese people hear me speak English - lest they think that I was in Porto for the football. Where do I even begin? Portugal is still trying to control the pandemic and then they had thousands of English tourists descend on Porto hell bent on causing trouble - before the match had began, there were big groups of football fans getting horrifically drunk on the streets, no social distancing, not wearing any masks and then the fights happened. Rival football fans starting fighting in the street, leading to the Portuguese authorities having to send in riot police. I did watch the news in Portuguese whilst I was there and although much of the anger was directed at the English football fans, many also vented their anger at the Portuguese authorities for allowing a football match like that to take place on Portuguese soil, knowing there would be trouble and such a football match was potentially a super-spreader event. That was the last thing the Portuguese people needed during a pandemic - sure the English tourists would spend some money in Porto and that would help boost the local economy in the short run, but was it worth it? Many locals felt that it wasn't worth it and that this match should have been held instead in England instead of Portugal, as given that both teams playing were English. 

I was lucky enough to have avoided the worst of the chaos caused by the football hooligans in Porto but I had actually witnessed another one in Manchester many years ago when I was working there in 2008. I was staying in a hotel during the duration of my contract there - both my employers and the hotel staff called me up and said, "there's going to be trouble, are you near the hotel? You need to return to the hotel now and stay there for your own safety until further notice." I was actually in the gay village in the Canal Street area thinking I was relatively safe then but I heeded the warning and rushed back to the hotel. Good grief. The following hours were tense as I watched the riot unfold from my hotel room window - these people weren't interested in football, instead it was just an insane number of very drunk, very working class hooligans hell bent on rioting. The Manchester police were woefully outnumbered. It was one of those moments that I could only shake my head in disbelief - you knew there was a football match taking place, you knew this was the kind of riot that the football hooligans usually cause before, during and after the match, so why wasn't the Manchester police prepared? Why were they taken by surprise the the rioters started smashing up the city? After we were given the all clear to leave the hotel when the situation had calmed down, I couldn't quite believe my eyes as I walked through the streets of central Manchester - it was like a war zone, it was absolute carnage. I remember looking at this bus stop next to the hotel that had been totally smashed in by the football hooligans and I thought, what could you possibly achieve by destroying that bus stop? Is your life somehow better now that you have smashed up that bus stop, or are you still the same poor, pathetic working class loser that you were, before you rioted and destroyed that bus stop? 

My regular readers will know that I have always been extremely skeptical about football fans: I think these people are absolute losers who have achieved very little in their lives. They probably struggled in school, didn't get a decent education and ended up in some miserable low-paid job which they absolutely hate. Their lives are a total misery because there's nothing but a long list of failure after failure if you were to look at their CV. So whilst rich and successful people can point to stuff and say, "hey I  have accomplished this, I am so amazing." Well, if you're a loser, you can't do that - so what you do is that you attach yourself to an entity that is a lot better at achieving success, like a football team full of the world's best players and when they win a match, you celebrate it as if you had won something, even if you watched the match at home in your living room. Look, I don't have anything against people who actually enjoy playing football - by all means, if you are just playing with a group of friends in the local park, record yourself scoring a goal and upload it onto social media then you can at least say, "hey, check this video out - I scored that goal, I've some great skills!" In that case, then you are an active participant in the sport, not just a passive observer watching it on the internet or on TV. But if you have seen just how very fat and overweight some of these football fans in Porto were, I would be amazed if they have actually gone near a real football in the last ten years - most of them looked as if they had never done any exercise in a rather long time - that's why I question their intentions when they claim to be a big fan of football. 

Allow me to do make a comparison: there has been a series of gymnastics competitions in America recently to select the team that will represent the US for the Tokyo Olympics and of course, I was thrilled to see the great Simone Biles compete again. For those of you who are not familiar with gymnastics, she is the greatest gymnast of all time and she is almost certainly going to win at least four (possibly five) gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics. She won four golds and one bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics and she is back to defend her Olympic crown. So did I declare myself to be 'team Biles' and start celebrating as if her victory was somehow connected to me? Now wouldn't that be totally insane! No, instead I simply watched her routines on Youtube, I was very impressed by the standard of her gymnastics, I was hugely entertained when I watched her perform and of course it brings me a lot of joy to see such amazing gymnastics as this is the sport that I truly love. I have great respect for her as a great gymnast but the fact is I recognize that I am simply one of her fans, whilst watching her perform at her best brings me a lot of joy, I would rather focus on my own gymnastics as my source of pride. Admittedly, I am a 45 year old adult gymnast - I'm usually the oldest person in the room by a very long way. The skills I perform are pretty good for an older gymnast my age (hey, find me a 45 year old man who can do what I do) but it is relatively simple compared to what Simone Biles is performing. However, I can still take personal pride when sharing those videos on social media because I can actually say, "hey check this out, this is what I did in training today - no bad for a 45 year old man, eh?" Thus I do make that distinction very clear between what brings me joy in watching Simone Biles compete and what I could claim personal credit for (when I do train gymnastics). 

Do I feel great joy when I get an outcome that I desire, even if I can't claim any credit for it? Of course I do - a good example of that is when Biden beat Trump in the US presidential elections last year. Obviously I couldn't vote as I am not an American citizen and I had no influence on the outcome of the elections given that I live in the UK but nonetheless, I hated Trump so much so you could imagine my elation when the results were finally made official. I screamed out loud and did a dance in my living room because it was just such a release - that combination of relief and pure joy. So am I being too harsh on these football fans then? Are they simply doing exactly what I was doing in my living room when Biden's victory was made official? Well let's stay with the example of an election and look at the other side of the argument. During the 2020 US presidential elections, both parties relied on a large number of volunteers who helped with the campaigning process - so for example, if you knew the results were going to be very close in your area, you would be very active on social media campaigning online, you might even literally go door to door, canvasing for votes and organize transport for residents to get to the polling booths on election day if the race is so extremely tight that every single vote counts. If you had been one of those volunteers who worked tirelessly to galvanize the local voters to turn up on election day, then you have a vested interest in the outcome of the election and if you do get the results you wanted then yes of course you could very legitimately claim that you did make some contribution towards that fantastic outcome. 

What goes on with the whole football entertainment industry is an interesting case study: football fans are duped into believing that they are a part of the team, that somehow these football players (who are often paid an insane amount of money) can't score goals without the moral support of the fans (yeah right). Fans spend a lot of money on the football clubs in three ways: buying merchandise, paying to watch live broadcasts of matches as well as buying tickets to watch matches in person. They are convinced that the more money they spend, the more they get to enjoy this sense of belonging - that they are part of the football club even though this is very much a one-way relationship. Joe Bloggs who works at the local hardware store can claim to be the most dedicated loyal fan of Chelsea, but the players of Chelsea don't even even know that Joe exists. Of course, there are many people like Joe who buy into the illusion, the fantasy that they are actually a vital part of a highly successful football club - so it really isn't merchandise, broadcast rights or tickets to matches that these football teams are selling, rather their most important product is this sense of belonging that presumably serves to fill a gap in Joe's vapid life as he works very long hours at the hardware store, doing a job he hates for very little money; but football serves as the distraction he needs to forget just how miserable his life is. Crazy as it may seem, this is actually a highly successful formula - the top tier of football clubs like Real Madrid, Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich make hundreds of millions of dollars a year this way and by selling this fantasy to their fans like Joe, that they can be a part of their story. As a commercial formula, the proof is in the pudding: it works!

So why is this formula so successful with people like Joe from the local hardware store then? If you look at the Marslow's hierarchy of needs (please see the video below), we can find the answers. Joe has fulfilled his most basic needs: he has a roof over his head, he gets three meals a day, he has enough clothes to wear. On top of that, he has a job (which he hates, but at least he is gainfully employed) and he is in relatively good health. What is missing from Joe's life however, are his higher level needs for love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. Joe's not going to get that from his job, especially if his manager at the hardware store is always scolding him for every mistake that he makes. I have seen some people then turn to their families in this situation - they then make claims like, "family is most important, family is everything, I just want to do a job that pays the bills so I can spend more time with my family." Well what if Joe's family situation is less than perfect? What if he doesn't get along with his parents and siblings? What if he's single or if his relationship with his partner is a troubled one? What if he's married with kids and he looks at his wife and children and thinks, "this is what I am stuck with now even if I am disappointed, I can't hit the reset button and try again. I don't hate them enough to want to divorce and walk away, but this was not what I had in mind when I decided to get married." So what does Joe do in under such circumstances to find love, belonging, esteem and achieve self-actualization then? He shifts his focus from his personal failures to the football team he supports and then treats their victories as if they are his own - because the football club keeps telling Joe that all fans and supporters are an extremely important part of the club. 

You might say to me, Alex that's unfair - not all football fans are complete losers looking for a distraction to forget the troubles in their lives. There are some football fans who have successful careers and have happy families - they're not like 'Joe' as you've described above. Well, I have two responses to that: firstly, sure some football fans are respectable and well-behaved, they enjoy watching football but never indulge in any of the disgraceful behaviour such as excessive drinking leading to brawls, fights and riots. I note that in the 2008 Manchester riot, the trouble was caused by the Glasgow Rangers fans who traveled to Manchester without a ticket - those who managed to secure the expensive tickets to the match in the stadium were well behaved and were not a part of the horrific riot that ensued in central Manchester. Secondly, let's take my friend Tom for example - he is both a football fan and has a successful career but let's not pretend for a moment that Tom doesn't experience any stress, worries or difficulties in his job. Quite the opposite, he runs a small business that was very successful in the period 2016 to 2020 then the pandemic hit and now he is working very long hours, struggling to keep the business afloat whilst losing money most months during the lockdowns. It has been an extremely stressful time for Tom as a business owner of course and for him, turning to football is his way of forgetting the troubles at work for the duration of the match and focusing his energy on something else for a change. So on match days, he would put on his team's football gear, go join other fans to watch the match at somewhere like a pub (when permitted under the restrictions) - then he would get drunk with the rest of them, regardless of the outcome of the match. 

So for Tom, imagine if he told his family, "I'm feeling really stressed at work this week, the pandemic has been horrific for my business and to be honest, I really don't know how the hell I am going to cope. So I going to the pub now and drink till I forget everything. I suppose I will see you later though I am not sure what time. Don't wait up for me tonight." Oh goodness me, if Tom actually said that, then it  would really alarm and upset his family, they would become really worried about his mental health. Clearly Tom doesn't want his family to worry about him, but he does want to have that opportunity to forget his troubles for a few hours. So instead, he says to them, "hey it's match day, I'm off to the pub to have a good time with my mates to watch the football together." Then somehow the later sounds more palatable and the standard response to that would be, "okay, have fun with the guys!" Allow me to point out that Tom isn't uneducated or a loser - quite the opposite, I have a lot of respect for him for having the balls to start a business. However, running his own business during a pandemic is extremely stressful and challenging - Tom merely sees getting horrifically drunk whilst watching football as a way to release some of that stress. Is this a healthy way for Tom to cope with the stressful situation at work? No, it isn't and even though we can say that Tom isn't a loser like Joe, but regardless of Tom's motivations, the outcome is still the same. In an ideal world of course, someone in Tom's position would focus all his energies on trying to deal with the underlying problems causing him stress in the first place rather than look for an outlet or distraction to forget his worries but Tom is only human and humans can be so irrational and illogical at times when it comes to mental health. 

This does explain what I witnessed at Trinidade station on the day I arrived in Porto - the metro line from Porto airport took me into the major interchange station of Trindade, from there I had to change to another train to get to my final destination in the historic center of the old town. Just as I was changing trains at Trinidade, I saw a very drunk English football fan (wearing a Chelsea shirt) having an altercation with the station guards. He had been screaming abuse at random people and making a nuisance of himself, when the guards tried to get him to stop doing that, he pulled down his trousers and urinated on the crowded platform in front of everyone - that was when the guards called the police because this guy had just exposed himself in front of so many people in a crowded train station - including children. The police had to restrain him as he was resisting arrest and I laughed when I saw them pin him to the ground with his face in a puddle of his own urine. At which point he was screaming that the police were killing him but the Portuguese people were just shaking their heads in disapproval - they had witnessed too many disgusting incidents like that because of the football game and were only too happy to see the police run this idiot's face in his own urine. But would someone like Joe be able to afford to travel to Portugal during a pandemic to see a football match? It would not be possible but highly unlikely, given that one has to pay about £200 to £300 for the testing alone just to travel between the two countries and that's before we even consider the cost of the flights, other transport, hotels, meals and of course, the tickets to the match which start at can cost up to £515 (but even more if you bought it on the resale market) - it suffices to say that the man who was arrested at Trinidade station had spent £1,500 to £2,000 (and that is a conservative estimate) for that trip. 

So would someone like Joe the loser have £2,000 to spend on a trip to Porto like that? It is possible but unlikely. Sure, Joe could have saved up for many months for a trip like that but it is far more likely that people in Joe's position simply wouldn't even have that kind of money in the first place and so would be watching the match from their living rooms or the local pub, rather than go to Porto for it. It is far more likely that the man arrested for urinating in the crowded station was more like Tom - someone who isn't a complete loser like Joe and has some financial means to just spend a few thousand pounds on a holiday like that. But you may wonder at this point: Tom is nothing like Joe, he is a respectable business owner, why would he do something as stupid and crazy as urinating in public, in the middle of a crowded train station in Portugal in front of so many people? We have to look at the psychology behind it: firstly, there's herd mentality and crowd psychology: on his own, Tom may be shy, reserved and quiet but when in a big group of football fans, he may become emboldened to do things he wouldn't otherwise dare to do on his own. This is why racist abuse takes place a lot during football matches in Europe, where black players often are subject to racist chants and bananas are thrown onto the pitch (ie. comparing them to monkeys/apes) - these offenders who indulge in such racist behaviour would probably think twice acting alone if they saw a black person in the street, but it is only because they are emboldened by being a part of a very big crowd of supporters at the football game that they dare to do something audacious and illegal like that, especially if they think they can easily get away with it if the authorities will struggle to identify the culprits in a big crowd. 

And therein lies the answer: it's not so much the connection these football fans have with the actual players of the football team but rather they are buying this sense of identity, to feel like they are part of a much bigger community. Of course, riots, fights and other kind of disruptive behaviour doesn't always ensue when football fans get together but we have seen how it could potentially lead to volatile situations that blow up like in Porto and Manchester as discussed in this piece. The explanation given by some about why things went so badly wrong in Porto was because it was simply the last straw that broke the camel's back: we had been living under lockdown conditions for so long, the pandemic has been terrible for our mental health and the moment you allowed these football fans to travel to Portugal, it didn't take much for trouble to erupt. The question that many in Portugal were asking was the obvious: it doesn't take a genius to predict that these conditions were setting up for a perfect storm, so why did they allow the match to go ahead then? Shouldn't they have at least held the match in England, so if the English fans were going to riot somewhere, at least it would not be left to the Portuguese government to clean up the mess? As for me, the next time I book a holiday, I will make sure I double check if there are any football matches taking place during the dates I have in mind! So that's it from me on this topic, over to you - what do you think? Have you ever witnessed any violence associated with football matches? Are you a fan of football and what is your relationship like with the team you support? Are you a football fan who actually plays football? So have I been way too harsh, cruel and judgmental on Joe? Please do leave comment below, many thanks for reading.