Violence has been a big part of sport for a long time. There are literally no sport events in which you do not see any violence. When we think of violence we automatically think of fighting, but there are actually many types of violence. Besides physical violence, there is also verbal violence and racial violence and in sports there can be violence between players, fans, teams etc. the research says that three most violent sports in the world are football, hockey and soccer, but violence can be found in any other sport such as basketball and baseball.
There are many violent events in sports that are pretty known to people. Some of them and the once that I am going to talk about are those with soccer stars who played in the World Cup in 2006 when French Zinedin Zidan headbutted Italian player Marco Materazzi. The reason why this happened is because Materazzi said something bad about Zidan’s sister which triggered him to hit Materazzi. This event has been seen by not just millions but billions of people throughout the world. When it happened it was a very big deal, because it completely influenced the game. France was attacking, had more opportunities for the goal, Zidan just had a great shot but Bufon, Italian goalkeeper somehow saved it. And in that 110 minute of the game in the second overtime this thing happened. Maybe it wouldn’t of a great deal if this wasn’t the World Cup finals, and whoever wins the game was going to become a world champion. Well at the end Italy came out as a winner after penalty kicking, but everybody is asking themselves what would had happened if Zidan didn’t get kicked off the game. News and newspapers were full of stories what exactly happened, what did Materazzi tell Zidan, who is a very calm guy, to make him that mad. That went over for months, until it wasn’t revealed a few months later. This game was by the way the last game ever Zidan played for the French national team, and it just went wrong, all because of the verbal violence that Materazzi had towards Zidan, which caused Zidan to physically violate Matterazzi.
The other pretty famous physical fight that took place was in the NBA game between Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons in November of 2004. This fight was so bad that it shook the whole NBA world and everybody who watches NBA at least a little big. After the fight commissioner of the NBA suspended nine players for all combined 144 games, out of which Indiana players got the most punishment. Ron Artest ended up being suspended for the rest of the year or 73 games at that point, Stephen Jackson got 30 games of suspension and Jermaine O’Neal was suspended for 25 games. In the chart below you can also see how it affected their salary, where most of the players lost significant money because of this fight.
Player | Games | Season salary | Salary lost |
Ron Artest | 73 | $6,158,000 | $4,995,000 |
Stephen Jackson | 30 | $5,100,000 | $1,700,000 |
Jermaine O’Neal | 25 | $14,800,000 | $4,111,000 |
Ben Wallace | 6 | $6,000,000 | $400,000 |
Anthony Johnson | 5 | $2,200,000 | $122,222 |
Reggie Miller | 1 | $5,500,000 | $61,111 |
Chauncey Billups | 1 | $5,455,000 | $60,611 |
Derrick Coleman | 1 | $4,500,000 | $50,000 |
Elden Campbell | 1 | $4,400,000 | $48,888 |
So as I said, violence will most likely exist as long as sports do and no matter where the U.S. or Europe, it is just the matter how are we going to react on the challenge when somebody else verbally assaults you, are you going physically to violet them or you are just going to let it go?
Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGFVhzmnYWg
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