How France 98 Is Playing in Publications Around the Globe:
GERMANY
Sueddeutsche Zeitung, on Iran-U.S. match:
“For ‘King Soccer,’ the Islamic Republic of Iran suddenly turns back into a monarchy. Millions dance in the streets, choruses of horns rise to heaven, and no Ayatollah, no president would get such cheers--just because ‘Big Satan’ was beat on the lawn.
” . . . The Iranian truth is much easier than the reporters think. For nearly two decades, the Iranians yelled ‘death to America.’ But they weren’t serious. Their secret ideal was the U.S.A. The demonstrators always wore blue jeans.”
*
From Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, on hooligan riots:
“It is too simple to call the hooligans brainless roughnecks who don’t know what they do after drinking. It would be also wrong to mix up hooligans with disappointed fans who didn’t get a ticket and wanted to storm the stadium. On this evening, obviously hooligans, skinheads and right radicals worked together perfectly with the help of modern communication media. It is particularly fatal that also right radicals with their brainless idea were among them.”
*
Left-of-center Berlin daily Berliner Zeitung, on the responsibility of the media:
“It is the publicity of Olympic Games and soccer World Cups that makes the hooligans do such things. This can’t be helped--sports lives from publicity in the end. But all who make their money with sports have to ask themselves if they don’t accelerate this madness. Who thinks it would be without consequence when politicians care more about soccer games than about political scandals? Who thinks it would be without consequence when a meeting of young soccer players from Iran and U.S.A. is pushed by the media to a war?”
FRANCE
From Le Parisien:
“If the [hooligan] incidents have happened outside the stadiums, in the terraces the World Cup has been a synonym for fraternization. Four games have been the object of all attention as far as security: Netherlands-Belgium at the Stade de France, England-Tunisia and Netherlands-South Korea at Marseille and Iran-U.S. at Lyon. Expected to be risky situations, they were, in each stadium, happy events without discord.
“Netherlands-Belgium was the first big game where supporters couldn’t get tickets. The two neighboring countries, with an old rivalry, were content to yell and sing without becoming aggressive. Even the national anthems were respected!
“Iran-U.S. was certainly the most symbolic. Sunday night, Lyon was a theatre of extraordinary communion between two peoples who are separated by so much. The Iranians and the Americans knew, with intelligence, to profit from this historic game by extending a hand to their enemy. The gestures of amity were strong images--ah, that Macarena danced in both camps--and very moving.”
*
From L’Equipe
“We hate all blind violence. But football didn’t invent it because it existed long ago. A stadium is a place to chant, root, laugh, cry, love, hate, where one is wounded. . . . Those who would ruin the celebration, they won’t do away with it. We go to the stadiums with head high and without shame. It’s with head high that players enter the fields of this superb World Cup.”
Correspondents Christian Retzlaff in Berlin and Helene Elliott in Saint-Denis contributed to this report.
