There’s been a lot of talk about Nobel prizes lately, because some dude in the US is jealous of some other dude receiving it.
But the Nobel peace prize has not been without controversy in the past. Once, a Swedish legislator, Lars Gustafsson, nominated the game of soccer (known as football everywhere but North America) for the peace prize.
Now, the first question that comes to my mind is: how would you go about awarding the prize to a game exactly? Would you dress up a set of goal posts in a tuxedo and make it attend the ceremonies in Oslo?
Or would you try to find the sport’s inventor? I imagine we can trace the beginnings of soccer all the way back to the cave days:
URG: Look at dis. I have blowed up a mammoth stomach and we can kick around onna field.
ERG: What good dat do?
URG: We can compete wif each udder dere instead of when hunting mammoths. I have invented new game to promote peace.
ERG: Oh, dats no big deal. Nerk blowed up a deer bladder last week. So he dood it first.
URG: He dood not.
ERG: He dood too!
URG: Not! Whack!
ERG: Too! Thump!
Even if we could find the true inventor of the game, there are still three words which sum up why it is not a good candidate for the Nobel peace prize: the soccer fan.
I can think of no other sport where the fans come to a game with protective equipment and devices for inflicting pain. Where they sing whole ballads to piss off the fans of the other teams. Tournaments, especially international ones, always seem to end with a trophy award ceremony and a riot. I’d bet that top 10 most wanted criminal lists in soccer-crazed countries include at least eight soccer hooligans. Soccer fans from Rio de Janeiro must be known as Brazil Nuts. And it’s really not a good idea to go into an English pub that supports Manchester United and tell David Beckham jokes. You’ll likely come away with sharp objects sticking out of your soft bits, and a pint upside the head.
Why does soccer seem to attract such violence? Maybe it’s because rule books include references to terms like striker, charging, chop, sliding tackle and — more ominously for guys wearing special, erm, padding — caught square.
But other sports have violent terms of reference, so maybe its because soccer is the only sport where you deliberately put your head in the path of a large, round, hard object travelling in excess of 50 kilometres an hour. Too many soccer balls to the noggin’, and you start saying things like: “Oi! I am proud to be a yob!”
Gustafsson says he nominated the game because it allows feuding nations to meet each other on the pitch rather than on the battlefield. But chess matches do the same thing, and the worst thing players and fans could do to each other with that is throw those little castle-shaped pieces at each other. Fans might feel rooked if that kind of violence broke out, but the action wouldn’t last more than two knights.
Anyway, Gustafsson, as a Swede, should know better: there is only One True Sport and that’s hockey. I think it should be nominated for the peace prize, and anyone who disagrees can come talk it over with me and my very large goalie stick.