Foul Play

One thing that makes football football is the unhinged enthusiasm fanatics bring to stadiums. With a can of Guinness in one hand and a sweaty knockoff jersey in another, a couple of thousand shirtless men cry oddly specific team chants in the hopes of summoning a season-defining goal. Some find this behavior endearing— simply the physical manifestation of a passionate personal commitment to the beautiful game. 

But what happens when the intensity of team spirit turns into domestic violence at one missed penalty kick?

The height of this year’s Euros has seen various organizations warn the public of an increase in domestic abuse cases. Figures from the past years point to a disheartening trend in the correlation between major sports events and the abuse women face at home. A study by Ivandić et al. (2024) analyzed data from domestic abuse calls in the Greater Manchester area during the football matches of Manchester United and Manchester City. The research found that reports increase 10-12 hours after a game and are likely exacerbated by the perpetrator’s consumption of alcoholic beverages. 

Of course, it would be completely inaccurate to say that football is the cause of domestic abuse, as the study reports no such claim. However, it would be just as deadly a mistake to dismiss the reality women across Europe (and the world as well) face at the hands of furious football-crazed men. Causation may not be evident, but if the stories of domestic abuse are of any indication, then a conversation is imminent.

Football has always been a man’s game. Despite strides in female representation in recent years, its patriarchal foundation continues to influence both major and oft-unseen aspects of the game. No matter your level of participation in the sport, whether a casual onlooker or die-hard fanatic, being a woman means that you are subject to the reactions of men who are too emotionally stunted to be able to channel their frustrations in ways other than violence.

In my years of being an avid supporter of football (England and Liverpool FC, to be exact), I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. To its merit, it truly is a beautiful game– from the rich history of Premier League football clubs and physics-defying Copa America goals to Messi’s spectacular assists and John Green’s chapter-long ode to Liverpool’s song You’ll Never Walk Alone and goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek’s performance on May 25, 2005. In short, nothing quite compares to the zeitgeist of football.

However, the sport is also ripe with misogyny and sexism– women players are still not receiving salaries proportional to that of their male counterparts, and women fans still face discrimination at the hands of males with superiority complexes. Worst of all these, however, is the violence wives, girlfriends, and significant others have to endure when a last-minute shot ever so slightly curves to the left of the goalpost, aggravating the irritation of drunk men with short tempers.

When Saka unfortunately missed the decisive penalty shot for England in the 2020 Euros against Italy, all I could think about was the wives who would have to bear the brunt of their husband's ruined moods. Any wrong move could prove fatal: a single burnt sausage or an ill-timed remark could mean a blow across the face and ice packs as an additional nighttime skincare routine. He will ask her for forgiveness and promise it won't happen again. But she, more than anyone, knows that that promise is just as empty as the beer bottles that pile up on the living room table during the World Cup finals. 

Women shouldn’t ever be on the receiving end of men’s fury. Whatever disappointment they may have over their club’s loss, they must leave it at the stadium. It is embarrassing, and not to mention illegal, to have such little control over one’s emotions that one resorts to knocking out a body less physically capable than theirs. Their lack of a fully developed frontal lobe does not give them the right to leave a fist-sized dent in others’.

Men like to exaggerate that football is life or death. Unfortunately, for some people, it is life or death. 

The foul play that occurs outside the stadium in large part due to what happened inside is absolutely sickening, but it is preventable. It is acceptable to feel frustration over defeat; we are human after all. What’s not acceptable is using our hands to deal with emotions we are unable to resolve maturely in our minds. At the end of the day, football is just a game. It is not worth the broken shards of glass or the lifelong trauma inflicted on those whose only crime was saying that there's always next time.  

A woman can only hope that her husband’s favorite team puts up a good defense so that she won’t have to. 

In contrast to the lyrics of Team England’s anthem Three Lions, football shouldn’t come home; at least, not in a way that endangers the lives and safety of the people men are supposed to love and care for.