Thai footie fans still champs after tempers flare in Lao row

Analyse it as probingly as you might, but football fandom is simply beyond reason. The charmingly innocent word “fan” itself derives from the Modern Latin fanaticus, meaning “insanely but divinely inspired”, and this month Thai football has given us evidence of both insanity and, well, if not godliness, at least something spiritually moving.

“True fans are committed from the cradle to the grave,” the website Sportsnetworker.com once posted. “They tattoo their skin, sing, start their own religion and use their cash (or their stun-guns) to express their – almost – unconditional love for their favourite team.”

And so it was when the Thai national squad faced Vietnam at a stadium in Vientiane, Laos, for the final of the Asean Football Federation’s U-19 Championship on September 4. 

Thailand, it turned out, had an easy romp of it, coming away with the winner’s trophy and a chance to get into World Cup 2018 qualifying. That’s not what made headlines around the globe, though. The headlines were about Thai fans at the stadium going insane, and not divinely.

Lao police kept 25 members of a group called “Ultras Thailand” detained overnight after they (or at least some of them) set off flares in the terraces to celebrate their team’s second goal, just before the hour mark of the match. Not everyone likes having their hair singed with flares, so a fistfight broke out amid the acrid smoke. The cops waded in, with some officers unsheathing their pistols and firing shots into the air to get folks to calm the hell down.

The AFF and even Fifa – the sport’s world governing body and a “law” unto itself – have a strict rule about this nasty habit of setting off fireworks in a crowd. Article 14.6, Subsection G, of the official Code of Conduct for Spectators says, “No bloody flares!”

The Football Association of Thailand immediately saw the peril posed by the Ultras’ pyrotechnics to the country’s image and even to relations with neighbouring countries. It swiftly issued an apology and for good measure got the Foreign Ministry to do likewise. 

The 25 Ultras were shipped back across the Mekong River and banned from attending the September 8 World Cup Group F qualifying match between Thailand and Iraq. There were some in the group of super-fans who protested at the ban, claiming they hadn’t been involved in the fisticuffs and in fact had tried to quell the chaos in the stands. 

By this point, of course, no one was listening to them. Instead, and in sharp contrast, the match against Iraq allowed a ray of hope and friendship to lighten one of the darker hours in Thai football history. At the qualifying match (an exciting 2-2 draw), another group of Thai fans with their heads screwed on tighter held aloft a banner reading, “Iraq, we hope peace is coming back soon”. It was a lovely gesture toward a country so ravaged by war.

A photo of the banner was posted on the “Iraqi Football News” Facebook page with the caption “Respect and thanks to Thai football fans for their great message at Thailand vs Iraq match yesterday. Thanks, Thailand.” It drew more than 6,800 “likes” and, better still, a lot of Thais also visited the page to offer more kind words.

Better the “flair” of grace and sportsmanship any day than flares of boastful contempt.