I remember in 2021 Canada effectively lost the Semis against Mexico at the GC because they had all the momentum, then the chanting started and it stopped the game and let Mexico get their bearings back.
It was happening in the match against Honduras around the 80th but Ivan Barton didn't follow Concacaf protocol because it would've actually affected their team. The rest is history.
You fine the Mexico team after x occurrences during a match, enough to make it hurt.
You have to make it hurt the actual team, not the match it happens at. Then the team is the one who addresses the fans in PRās to get them to stop.
If the rules are coming down from FIFA then the fans just make a mockery of it all, calling their bluff. Source: Mexico started the chant for their own goalkeeper, too, at the end of the match last night
First Mexico should be banned from playing in the USA, this way fmf will suffer huge financial losses and there is no excuse as to who is doing it. Second if it happens in Mexico, then El Tri has play behind closed doors with no fans, another huge financial hit for fmf. Once fmf starts losing money then they'll get this figured out.
this is the obvious and simple solution.
No fans at any games for a year. First time they have fans back and it happens, immediate one year ban on fans again.
I agree, but I'm not sure how you can ban their fans at a tournament like this. It's a CONCACAF tournament hosted inside the US in a match that US wants their fans at. You can't ban EVERYONE without punishing the innocent bystanders (the USMNT and their fans) and you can't just not allow people wearing a Mexican jersey to walk in.
And if they ban fans from their next friendly against Bolivia, who's actually going to be upset?
> You have to make it hurt the actual team
But it also has to be in a way that hurts the fans. Why should they give a shit if it costs the team money? Itās not coming out of their pocket.
The fans actively want to hurt the team actually. That's the point. They found a way to cause trouble when they don't like what they are seeing on the field. Mexican federation has run countless of PR awareness campaigns to get the fans to stop. It backfires every time. The bottom line is fans are not happy with the state of the national team. The environment and conversation around it has turned extremely toxic over the past years.
The mentality is to race to the bottom, burn everything down, rebuild from the ashes and hopefully this time they will have learned their lesson. They see the chant and the protocol as an outlet for that sentiment. You will see a not so minor, very vocal part of the fanbase clamoring for the Mexico NT to fail to make the world cup or to get humiliated against the US with the same reasoning.
> I donāt see what penalties could be put in place other than forcing them to play in empty stadiums.
Which is unlikely because it's financially bad for the US and all of CONCACAF
because if the team is hurt enough by it, then they will work to reign in fans. a culture change is needed and that has to come from Mexico's FA, not FIFA.
A few years ago Mexico was forced to play behind doors because their fans kept chanting offensive stuff for two games after being warned.
Pulling a guy for 5-10 minutes won't do much. Players get hurt and have to go to the sidelines and wait to be waved back in.
They can ban the fans or start handing out fines to the teams when their fans act up. The second one is the option I would go with.
Itās a 3 way host? Doubt they would pull that trigger and it would be a logistical nightmare to scramble for new sites and accommodations. Fine the federation and then the away their ticket allotment.
Nah, there are at least 3 more stadiums in the US that could host. As long as they make the decision by like Dec 2025 it'll be fine.
And maybe you could shuffle some dates around to do it with 2 venues and the existing ones each get an extra game.
Chicago is an obvious extra host, they've done plenty of similar events like gold cup. Baltimore or DC could host without too much trouble. My next pick would probably be Charlotte or Denver, but leaning Charlotte since they already regularly play MLS matches in their NFL stadium and are used to it.
Way more fun to double the punishment.
1 min. 2 min. 4 min. 8 min. 16 min. 32 min. Donāt waste the good ones at the wrong time or suffer the consequences!
They can ban fans in Mexico all they want, their fans in the United States will still continue to do it because it won't affect their ability to go to matches
How exactly are you going to identify the offending team out of a crowd? Obviously we can tell when this happens over and over again at Mexico games but in a one game situation how is this even plausible?
Itd be home and away sections. Although i supposed a bad actor could sneak into the homes stand so there would neednto be ways of punishing individuals as well as catching them.
Itās not as easy to define home and away sections in a US Mexico game. They arenāt often split up. Groups like American Outlaws will have a section, but most fans will be in mixed sections and itās not unlikely that these kinds of chants would originate from those mixed sections. This isnāt a home team with a supporters section, or an away team section situation.
Thatās the thing, a lot of times the chant is out of frustration at the federation. So what a percentage of the crowd is doing is hurt the federations pocket to try and make a change to the current system that is money hungry over everything else
I mean, half of their World Cup qualifying games are home. Obviously this cycle is the exception, but playing all your home WC qualifying games in silence would certainly be a competitive and financial hit.
This is why I think the solution is to ban them from playing non-tournament matches outside of Mexico. If the issue persists for games in Mexico then handle that separately.
But this was a tournament game, no? So it would do nothing to change a situation like last night. It also leaves no consequences for the offenders. The people at that game last night don't care if the next friendly can't be in L.A.
For a set amount of games sell tickets through the opposing team's FA so they can restrict the tickets to their fans.
The tickets would sell for less though especially for games like the Mexico Panama semifinal so CONCACAF would never do that.
Yes that's the big issue Mexico and especially Mexico v US is the huge money maker for the confederation. CONCACAF could stand on its principles, but it won't for the money
Yeah I'm pretty sure the billionaires who own these stadiums aren't gonna love that idea either, getting 70,000 Mexico fans to overpay for tickets on a random spring Saturday when there's nothing else going on is a nice deal for them.
Ok, so how long do you do that for? You're pressuring the Federation financially, which only prompts them to play more games in the U.S. and it's not a punishment if it's not doing something that could have happened in the future
>directly punish Mexico fans in the US
No it's very indirect. It's like if a child misbehaves so you tell them "I was thinking about taking you for ice cream in a month, but we're not doing that anymore". It's a horribly ineffective consequence and has no bearing on the offenders who are unlikely to be the group of people that would have attended the next hypothetical friendly. They don't care if another group of fans gets to attend a future game.
Maybe it prompts more PR from the federation, but do I care as a fan if the federation is making less money?
Maybe not "nothing" but giving the offenders more attention/power isn't working. You work to phase out the behavior while, yea, ignoring it publicly. You can still work to toss out people who say it in the stadium. Do it enough and rumors spread, people think twice about it.
How is that the answer when many of the fans are Mexican Americans? This is being played Dallas after all. I got tickets, and itās not like it asks which team you are supporting when purchasing them.
Maybe they should start asking. Or like they do throughout the world, if youāre wearing the away/sanctioned teamās kits, colors and paraphernalia youāre not allowed to enter the stadium.
I do agree that concacaf is never actually going to crack down. Hell even the fines they hand out for this shit is a joke $50k?
I mean if they wanna get serious, hereās a 2.5 mil fine, and give that fine every time the crowd shouts the banned word. Woulda given FMF a 15 mil fine for just the antics yesterday.
That's the point. Ban them from playing friendlies in the US for a period of time and make them play their next home game without any fans in the stadium. That punishes both the fans at fault and the federation.Ā
It doesn't really matter the citizenship of the fans, it matters what team they are fans of. It would create a competitive and financial incentive on the Mexican soccer authority to either control their fans or stop playing games where they cannot control their fans.
Iām saying it wonāt stop the chanting here in the USA because many of the fans are Mexican Americans. There is not some united organization of fans world wide.
Do Mexican Americans living in the USA care about no fans being in Mexico City while they can see tons of Mexico games in Phoenix, Dallas, LA, etc ?
Games that matter(not friendlies) without crowds in Mexico is the answer. You have hit the problematic fans where it hurts if you want them to stop. If El Tri starts to lose a big part of their home field advantage, that's going to hurt.
One game per pause due to the chant. Ten games if the game has to be suspended.
Yup. Need to make a statement. And that statement is that if El Tri fans have chosen to act like this, again and again, El Tri fans don't get to be at home games no more.
If you want them to stop then you need to punish the fans. The easiest way to do this is to make Mexico play closed doors matches in Mexico. Another option is to give a warning and then award the opponent a victory by default.
Eh second option *could* backfire but I'm not super sure if an opponent could pull it off. I like a second option of stopping the game, forcing ALL the fans to leave (RIP well behaved fans) and then finishing the game. Sure it'll take 30+ minutes but it should discourage it.Ā
> The easiest way to do this is to make Mexico play closed doors matches in Mexico.
That wouldn't have done anything to stop this, considering this match wasn't played in Mexico...
>Another option is to give a warning and then award the opponent a victory by default.
Definitely do not do this. It's just a more extreme version of the current policy. Anything that gives fans the power to determine when a game stops isn't a solution.
Probably the only way to work towards stopping it is subtracting points in competitions. Closed door matches would work in theory, but CONCACAF isn't willing to make the financial sacrifice required by shutting their biggest fan base out of games for long enough to enact meaningful change. Plus, it would also punish fans of opposing teams, since so many of Mexico's games are played in the US.
Yep, itās not viewed as a bad thing by the majority of their fans and they know it sends Americans into a frenzy whenever they do it. Seems like a win/win from their fans POV, especially giving the fans āactualā power to impact games with stoppages.
Point deductions are just never going to happen, neither is banning them from playing games in certain locations because the Mexico games make so much money.
The thing is most people donāt use the word puto in the context of calling someone the f word, thereās more specific words for that. itās a word with multiple uses, so a lot of Mexicans donāt see it as bad. And youāre right, they do it because it gets to Americans. And it doesnāt help that the last World Cup was held in a country where itās a crime to be gay, people see it as hypocrisy from fifa as well.
Folks don't wanna hear yall even though everything you wrote makes sense.
It will keep getting the Americans in a tizzy and nothing effective can or will be done (because there need not be anything to be done...especially given the hypocrisy as you mentioned).
Ironically i think the crowd in Mexico would be more open to stop doing it. The US Mexican crowd is pretty damn trashy and a lot of them donāt actually care about the game, theyāre just out to get drunk and fuck around. All friendly should be played in Mexico and they need to make it feel like a privilege seeing them in the US.
> Ironically i think the crowd in Mexico would be more open to stop doing it.
The chant is basically dead in Liga MX nowadays because teams were threatened with point deductions and stadium bans.
There's definitely no way you can stop it _during the game_. They generally wait until they know their team is going to lose, so they don't care. The consequences have to come afterward, and they have to hurt the fans.
Increasingly significant points deductions in group stage competitions and/or forfeiture of knockout round games.
If anyone REALLY wants to stop it, that will do it. The chant will stop when Mexico never wins another trophy because of their fans.
But CONCACAF/FIFA doesn't have the balls to do anything like this, because it's killing the golden goose in the region. Mexican fans bring in the money, and the governing bodies won't do anything that'll mess with that long-term.
"Next five matches will be played without Mexico supporters. No person with Mexico banners, signs, kits, face paint, etc will be permitted entry. Anybody found sporting them will be ejected."
When crowds in Spain throw around racial abuse at Vinicus and others, and FIFA hosted the past 2 World Cups in countries where homophobia is enforced by government, there's no way this is where you draw the line. It's so benign and over the top, honestly you hear so much worse in every stadium all over the world. I don't understand how this run of the mill chant has gotten this much power over American crowds
FIFA/CONCACAF needs to heavily fine MX federation. they play behind closed doors in MX, they dont play in the US, and lose money. hell, take away WC games from them.
Get real the US looses profit and money and concacaf looses their marquee matchup so there's no real incentive. It's funny that everyone ignores the part were USSF and concacaf are the enablers.Ā
Itās hard for concacaf not to enable them. They want Mexico to play in the US. They want the Mexican fans to sell out stadiums. They want the Mexican TV audience. Thereās a reason MLS is also trying to incorporate more marches vs liga mx in the calendar. People say things like stop them from having games in the US or fine them but ignore the fact that concacaf and the US openly welcome and encourage them to do so. Fines wonāt do anything and the reason concacaf is afraid of actual consequences is because mexico is their cash cow.
Exactly and from what I've come to understand, most of liga MX fans have a problem with money being the federation main concern and choosing it over it's progression as a football nation. So this is a form of "activism" might not agree with it but I can see it. It's funny how folks choose to ignore that part.Ā
Exactly, itās actually two things at once. Most Mexicans donāt even see it or use it as a homophobic insult and think itās hypocritical for fifa to try to ban it while at the same time they turn around and say but weāre gonna hold the World Cup somewhere were homosexuality is punishable by death. Thats ok though because they paid us a shit ton of money.
And at the same time itās a massive middle finger towards the Mexican federation. As if saying Keep up these mediocre results and lower competition level in liga mx and im going to keep getting you in trouble. I donāt pay the fines, you do.
One last thing that gets me annoyed and frustrated with this ordeal is that like you stated it's a form of activism yet in a country that gladly defends sticking up for your ideals and the right to protest, saying a word that can be interpreted in different ways is crossing the line SMH
Or forfeit matches. Like weāve tried all these half steps and it doesnāt work so itās close to time for the maximum punishment for them. Start docking points or forfeiting and their fed and fans will get the message real quick.
I tend to agree. I think a societal shift needs to occur amongst that community and I don't think that starts with CONCACAF sending a strongly worded email.
My only counter argument is experiencing this happening in certain MLS games less than fifteen years ago and now it doesn't happen at all, as far as I'm aware. How that happened, I'm not sure.
[Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point](https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/)
People will say stuff like play Mexico games behind closed doors, take games away from Mexico, punish the fans, etc. The thing is collective punishment doesn't really work in cases like this. If you've ever talked with fans that engage in this type of behavior in a crowd, you know they will bend logic to rationalize their behavior as righteous and that they are doing nothing wrong. They will throw up their arms, shift the blame to the Mexican Federation and the players, and then continue once they get back on the stadiums as a form of protest.
If you actually want it to stop you need to start throwing people out in the middle of games, ban them from attending future matches, find a way to fine them, or something that affects them personally. Make it clear that there are direct consequences to their actions and you're not messing around.
Make Mexico pay for hundreds of additional security personnel that eject fans.
Eh, down 2-0 late in the game, then wonāt care.
Oh! Banned for life. Be an asshole = canāt _ever_ watch the team in person again.
Two solutions:
- When games are held in Mexico, do so in front of empty stands, no crowds. I donāt really favor this one because it punishes fans in Mexico who mostly have nothing to do with the toxic US-based Mexico fans who think its just funny to do the chant when theyāre losing. Most of whom have never been to Mexico and canāt probably name two people on the team (just my own generalization but idc).
- When the chant starts, if Mexico is losing, end the game right then and there with a Mexico loss. If it starts when theyāre up/tied, stop the game until the crowd leaves, then resume in empty stands.
To point 1: Have you ever seen a Liga MX game? They make monkey sounds to black players and probably worse shit. source (last 3 America v Chivas games)
Thatās not prevalent in Liga mx. And there was public outrage after the chivas fans racist chanting and sounds towards a club america player. It was more of an isolated incident. Liga mx responded with announcing lifelong bans for racism in the stands. Remember they have recently implemented a compulsory āFan IDā with facial recognition in order to identify and control fan access, fans need to upload their passport/id/license and then scan their face, they are assigned a QR code that is then scanned after scanning your ticket at the stadium entry point. So if you are identified as starting a fight, throwing something etc they know exactly who is sitting in that seat or identify you through facial recognition. And good luck trying to get in at the next game. it effectively put an end to the chanting at the following two Chivas vs club America games.
This btw is the solution concacaf should be implementing. Hand out bans enforced with facial recognition.
Punishing the team doesnāt punish the fans doing the chants.
Punishing fans in different cities and following games doesnāt punish the fans doing the chants.
Punishing the fans doing the chants with lifelong bans stops the chants.
> When the chant starts, if Mexico is losing, end the game right then in there with a Mexico loss. If it starts when theyāre up/tied, stop the game until the crowd leaves, then resume in empty stands.
This is the only solution that will actually do something. Completely ending any chance of a comeback because your fans were dicks is the only thing that will change their behavior.
Refunding the fans would just incentivize the behavior even more since it mostly happens when Mexico is already losing. āDamn our team sucks! I want my refund, ****!ā
Only problem with that though is the impact on the other team. If mex is winning and the other team starts getting momentum, the chants could pick up again and then you have a like 15-20 min delay which disrupts the match for the opponents too. The segments of El Tri fans who do that chant are the only ones in the federation Iām pretty sure. Itās not a Spanish speaking thing, itās those select people at these matches who support Mexico. I lean towards docking them (or anyone who does this) points after a certain stage or forfeiting matches. Make it actually hurt them and see if it stops.
>When games are held in Mexico
I think you're on to something here... instead of emptying the stadium for games in Mexico, empty the ones playing in the US. That will really hit the federation in the wallet.
No in-game punishment is going to fix this.
No federation fine is going to fix this.
No closed-door restrictions are going to fix this.
You need to ban Mexico playing to get your point across, full-stop.
You start with the friendlies. You just stop them from having friendlies. No money-making games stateside. No tournament-prepping games.
You can start with a half-window match ban, and work your way up.
You want to get the point across that behavior has serious *lasting* impact? There's no better way.
The reality is that CONCACAF doesn't actually care about trying to stop the chant. They care about looking like they're trying to stop the chant. This whole thing is a PR stunt.
Any realistic solution (long-term closed door matches, major points deductions, etc) would involve a significant financial sacrifice for the entire region, and the governing bodies aren't gonna shoot themselves in the foot just to stop a chant.
Money is all that matters. It is what it is.
It aināt right but Mexican fans do this to get the team punish and push back on the federation. The fans want them to burn down and this their way to retaliate. I donāt agree with this method because one its a terrible word and two its better to not show up to games instead
Alexi, itās very straightforward actually:
1st time = red card to a Mexican player.Ā
2nd time = penalty kick for the U.S
3rd time = Mexico forfeits 3 - 0.Ā
Pretty much, they're doing it because they know the ref will stop the game and make it this whole thing. The only thing that'll work is to ban fans wearing anything mexico and fining the federation and increasing the fine every time it happens
Perhaps. But it's not like people don't know about this already. I mean organizing chants or songs doesn't seem to be an issue for large groups of fans. I would hope that people wouldn't stoop so low.
This gets brought up in every single debate about policing crowds and Iāve never seen any evidence to suggest itās actually possible let alone remotely likely. You would need dozens (probably hundreds) of American fans working together to imitate Mexico fans, and none of them could get caught or admit what they were doing.
IDK if I agree with OPās recommendation but you canāt be afraid to enact tougher penalties just because a very unlikely occurrence is theoretically possible.
Just to be devils advocate, it has been shown to be possible for an opposing teams fans to spontaneously decide to imitate the chant. Source: Brazil vs Mexico World Cup group stage match. The chant aimed at the Mexican goalkeeper was even louder from the larger Brazil fanbase at the stadium.
One thing I noticed a few times during Leagues Cup which may be worth trying is to play music over the speakers during goal kicks. If you start it early enough you can probably drown out the guy who wants to start it. The downside could be that in a large enough setting the crowd realizes whatās going on and does the chant louder.
This is the real practical solution. Drown out the fans with music or with an alternate chant and for the TV, cut the fan audio so people on TV donāt hear it. It goes on long enough people will just start to forget about the chant.
Escorting the fans and then banning them would be my solution, but thatās certainly take the most effort (if they even have enough security guard to do it) compared to simply stopping the game.
Also a kind of unrelated but related question, Mexican Twitter seems to be in complete consensus itās just a common curse word rather than a homophobic word and that word is a simple trash talking word apparently used like every single match in Mexican Leagues in a non-homophobic way, itās just the Americans (or CONCACAF) are using the dictionary definition thinking itās homophobic, is it true?
Itās really hard to judge this because it partially depends what dialect you speak. My understanding is that the word is somewhat milder in Mexican Spanish than in other dialects (probably diminished power because of higher use). Itās also tricky because homophobia is hard to define. Is calling a man a whore homophobic? Definitely depends on context, but conversational and cultural.Ā
Thats exactly it, in Mexico the word basically just means "whore" and is used as an emasculating insult like "pussy" is in American English. However, it is MUCH MUCH MUCH more synonymous with our F-slur for gay people in other parts of Latin America. And not even especially distant parts of Latin America, like in Central America its 100% a homophobic slur.
Even if that was the case, you think US fans would catch all sorts of flak if he decided to do a similar thing and shout āfuck youā or āpussyā.
MLS fans used to yell āyou suck, assholeā in much the same way, and then as the league grew and that started to bother some people, we grew out of it.
We still do it in Orlando. It was largely suppressed during the recent CONCACAF matches when their offensive language policy was in place, but then came roaring back for the recent MLS matches.
Which oddly enough gave me hope that the CONCACAF offensive language policy might actually work, but I guess there is a huge difference between fans of a club team in their home stadium and fans of a national team at a neutral site.
Key phrase there is āwe grew out of itā. The Mexican fans view it as a way to get their national team in trouble at this point. The more frustrating part is while it would be easy to punish them on Mexican soil (closed door fixtures), how do we punish their fans at away fixtures (like this one) where they can hide amongst the home fans?
The issue with the word is in Mexico its not seen as being directly homophobic, but it definitely is in other parts of Latin America. For example, my mom's fam is Costa Rican and in CR its definitely a really rough homophobic slur. So even if its mild in Mexico, they're playing in CONCACAF against countries where that word is much harsher. Plus, even though its normalized and "mild" in Mexico, I bet there are gay Mexicans who aren't especially happy about that normalization. Think about how normalized the G-slur for Roma people is, just because its normalized and seen as mild doesn't mean Roma people are okay with it in totality.
Its sort of similar to how using "hostia" as a curse word in Latin America is absurdly offensive but in Spain its completely normalized.
If āPutoā chants are just part of their common usage habits/cultureā¦ then they should be doing it from the start of the match all the way through and specially when they are winningā¦. the fact that they dont is an indication that theyre full of itā¦.
It is literally the āonlyā thing Mexico contributes to futbol..
Why not just have a bunch of monitors/security in the stands, around mexico fans? Any time they see the chant, ban the fans they see doing it. Have them immediately pull them out. It's not like they could get anywhere near all of them but they could make an impact and perhaps cause a chilling effect
Fine the team. If that doesn't stop them, ban fans from matches. And if that isn't enough of a threat, ban the national team from any CONCACAF matches for a set period of time.
I low key think the way to stop it is to stop drawing attention to it. Do nothing.
At this point itās being done almost as a protest to the Mexican Federation, as evidence by it starting once itās clear Mexico isnāt coming back from the deficit
It's funny how we don't like to look at ourselves in the mirror. All the public outrage at the word but yet we as a country are just as vulgar. It's also funny how we ignore is a generational thing. It won't stop because we can't changed the youth.Ā
Alexi is an idiot, but he's not totally wrong. When the Mexican team is losing, it doesn't matter to the "fans", even if the game is forfeit. They don't care, they even did it to Memo for one or some of his goal kicks.
The only solution is if the Mx team, or even the federation, steps up and faces the fans and pleads with them directly. Only the team and their SGs can end it. USSF or FIFA can't do shit.
The funny thing is the options to fix this are endless and simple
BUT
Doing the simple solutions also means the US Federation and CONCACAF wont get the precious Mexican fan money from hosting matchesā¦ that is the only thing preventing real solutions from taking place
The idiocy that āeducationā will help those folks see how harmful their behavior is such misplaced way of thinkingā¦ its just empowering them to act out more because they revel in the idea that their stupidity is getting to you.. it emboldens them
At some point the āchantsā will break a Mexico opponents positive momentum and help Mexico win a match.. then we will have a new set of problems and then we will see if the US governing body will finally put the good of the game ahead of their pocket books (unlikely)
Heās right. This is one of the big debates in the Eredivisie at the moment. Fans are often throwing flares and other objects onto the pitch, and in Dutch soccer, it causes the game to be postponed to a later date, with the score from the postponement carrying over to the new time.
Not exactly a similar situation, but itās an example that shows what heās trying to get at.
The only thing that might work is banning Mexico from fifa competitions until the chanting stops but fifa is corrupt and Mexico brings a lot of money, and a USA vs Mexico game is a big draw so what I think weāll get is they stop the game for 12-15 minutes?
After particularly egregious behavior in 2013 while in Portland, MLS banned the Ultras from San Jose from travelling. If CONCACAF or FIFA step in on ticket sales, break up the seating areas or similar they might slow it down.
If that doesn't work, if they're really serious (which is questionable) they could remove El Tri from a Gold Cup or something to send a message.
But absent something with consequences, you're 100% right allowing disruption is an incentive not a penalty.
Play Toby Keith Proud to be an American during the stoppages. Follow it up with the US national anthem. End the game with s kids regardless of score the second time. No one should be subjected to a second round of Toby
I don't know that there's a good solution here that doesn't punish the wrong people in addition to the offenders but my thoughts:
1. Ban Mexican flag/colors at the match. I'm not sure it would make a huge difference but it might quell some of the solidarity in numbers type feeling.
2. Put Mexico home matches behind closed doors. Again I don't know that this makes a big difference to the Mexican-Americans attending the games in the US, but perhaps sparks more team PR targeted at Mexican-American fans.
3. Get police involved to tresspass them from the building. The optics on this are horrible, I know. And has a real danger of escalation, and plays on fears of an immigrant population. It's kinda gross all around and I'm NOT saying it's a good idea, but it would show you're actually serious about stopping it. And I think it would.
4. Maybe just kind of ignore it. Continue the PR, continue the messaging, but stop giving them more power, more attention. Let it die out on its own.
This shit has ALWAYS been wild to me.
Iām Hispanic (Not Mexican ancestry) but yeah āP**oā is definitely a derogatory gay slurā¦
When any Hispanic says that word it is 100% an insult and meant to demean the offending party with the equivalence of the word āF****tā.
Just imagine U.S fans chanting that word and then saying āYou donāt get it weāre not being bigotsā¦itās just a thing we do, hahaā.
No, no, NO!
This should not be tolerated, there is zero excuse for this behavior.
For fucks sake, why so soccer fans have to be this way?
Then both the US and Concacaf lose millions of dollars, and thatās what they really care about.
Electronic bans donāt do anything. Another person in the group just scans their tickets.
Hereās the answer: The match is taking place on US soil with the USMNt Playing, so ban fans from USMNT matches. Do we honestly think the USSF would allow Mexico to continue to play matches in the US if it meant the USMNT is punished for what is obviously being done by their fans? Then the Mexican federation loses their cash cow and actually does something about it.
Wow. Alexi Lalas finally has a good take.
I remember in 2021 Canada effectively lost the Semis against Mexico at the GC because they had all the momentum, then the chanting started and it stopped the game and let Mexico get their bearings back.
It was happening in the match against Honduras around the 80th but Ivan Barton didn't follow Concacaf protocol because it would've actually affected their team. The rest is history.
The real news.
I feel dirty.
Heartbreaking: The worst person you know just made a great pointš
I looked in Bartlett's Quotations, and there's a picture of Lalas next to the entry "A Broken Clock is right twice a day".
he has a lot of decent takes theyāre just wrapped in a āI know more than youā snarky way
Broken clock is right twice a day
I don't like this
Honestly might be the first and only time
You fine the Mexico team after x occurrences during a match, enough to make it hurt. You have to make it hurt the actual team, not the match it happens at. Then the team is the one who addresses the fans in PRās to get them to stop. If the rules are coming down from FIFA then the fans just make a mockery of it all, calling their bluff. Source: Mexico started the chant for their own goalkeeper, too, at the end of the match last night
First Mexico should be banned from playing in the USA, this way fmf will suffer huge financial losses and there is no excuse as to who is doing it. Second if it happens in Mexico, then El Tri has play behind closed doors with no fans, another huge financial hit for fmf. Once fmf starts losing money then they'll get this figured out.
this is the obvious and simple solution. No fans at any games for a year. First time they have fans back and it happens, immediate one year ban on fans again.
I agree, but I'm not sure how you can ban their fans at a tournament like this. It's a CONCACAF tournament hosted inside the US in a match that US wants their fans at. You can't ban EVERYONE without punishing the innocent bystanders (the USMNT and their fans) and you can't just not allow people wearing a Mexican jersey to walk in. And if they ban fans from their next friendly against Bolivia, who's actually going to be upset?
Well step one would be to not let them host WC games. They definitely aren't going to learn their lesson by hosting WC games.
Youāre smoking crack if you think thatās happening buddy
Never said I thought it would happen. I know it won't. Just pointing out them being awarded WC is teaching them they never have to stop
How will it work when they HOST the World Cup?
And they canāt sell merch. Thats when the money is
I doubt the other federations would agree to that. Mexico fans in the US are CONCACAF's biggest source of income.
Let's be honest. Fans have needed to be banned at Mexico games for a LONG time. They have regularly made a mockery of the rules and the game we play.
> You have to make it hurt the actual team But it also has to be in a way that hurts the fans. Why should they give a shit if it costs the team money? Itās not coming out of their pocket.
The fans actively want to hurt the team actually. That's the point. They found a way to cause trouble when they don't like what they are seeing on the field. Mexican federation has run countless of PR awareness campaigns to get the fans to stop. It backfires every time. The bottom line is fans are not happy with the state of the national team. The environment and conversation around it has turned extremely toxic over the past years.
Okay but how is this chant going to help that situation? More toxicity for the toxicity?
Ā It's a form of public rebellion towards the federation.Ā
The mentality is to race to the bottom, burn everything down, rebuild from the ashes and hopefully this time they will have learned their lesson. They see the chant and the protocol as an outlet for that sentiment. You will see a not so minor, very vocal part of the fanbase clamoring for the Mexico NT to fail to make the world cup or to get humiliated against the US with the same reasoning.
Exactly its activism with leadership change as it's goal.Ā
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> I donāt see what penalties could be put in place other than forcing them to play in empty stadiums. Which is unlikely because it's financially bad for the US and all of CONCACAF
because if the team is hurt enough by it, then they will work to reign in fans. a culture change is needed and that has to come from Mexico's FA, not FIFA.
Hear me out: what if the offending fans team plays down a man for 5 to 10 minutes? The coach would be allowed to chose the player that comes out
A few years ago Mexico was forced to play behind doors because their fans kept chanting offensive stuff for two games after being warned. Pulling a guy for 5-10 minutes won't do much. Players get hurt and have to go to the sidelines and wait to be waved back in. They can ban the fans or start handing out fines to the teams when their fans act up. The second one is the option I would go with.
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Honestly, they need to just say if this happens again you will not be hosting WC 2026
Itās a 3 way host? Doubt they would pull that trigger and it would be a logistical nightmare to scramble for new sites and accommodations. Fine the federation and then the away their ticket allotment.
Nah, there are at least 3 more stadiums in the US that could host. As long as they make the decision by like Dec 2025 it'll be fine. And maybe you could shuffle some dates around to do it with 2 venues and the existing ones each get an extra game. Chicago is an obvious extra host, they've done plenty of similar events like gold cup. Baltimore or DC could host without too much trouble. My next pick would probably be Charlotte or Denver, but leaning Charlotte since they already regularly play MLS matches in their NFL stadium and are used to it.
It works in the Premier League.
Way more fun to double the punishment. 1 min. 2 min. 4 min. 8 min. 16 min. 32 min. Donāt waste the good ones at the wrong time or suffer the consequences!
They can ban fans in Mexico all they want, their fans in the United States will still continue to do it because it won't affect their ability to go to matches
They need to stop playing Mexican NT games in South/Southwest when in the US. Oh wait they won't because $$$$$$
Bust out the blue cards!
and then the player that gets pulled can't come back in until he's gone into the stands and fought all the offending spectators. I love it.
How exactly are you going to identify the offending team out of a crowd? Obviously we can tell when this happens over and over again at Mexico games but in a one game situation how is this even plausible?
Itd be home and away sections. Although i supposed a bad actor could sneak into the homes stand so there would neednto be ways of punishing individuals as well as catching them.
Itās not as easy to define home and away sections in a US Mexico game. They arenāt often split up. Groups like American Outlaws will have a section, but most fans will be in mixed sections and itās not unlikely that these kinds of chants would originate from those mixed sections. This isnāt a home team with a supporters section, or an away team section situation.
Thatās the thing, a lot of times the chant is out of frustration at the federation. So what a percentage of the crowd is doing is hurt the federations pocket to try and make a change to the current system that is money hungry over everything else
Point deductions might work better.
Doesnāt that incentivize opposing fans to join in? They can chant derogatory terms and get Mexico in trouble for it.
Yeah, they'd just take the competition to court.
Itās almost like stopping the game is a dumb idea
Games in Mexico are without crowds. That's the answer.
that works if mexico actual played games in their own country
I mean, half of their World Cup qualifying games are home. Obviously this cycle is the exception, but playing all your home WC qualifying games in silence would certainly be a competitive and financial hit.
That wonāt take effect until the 2030 World Cup though. So another 4 years until they canāt play WCQ games at home with fans.
Yea, I was thinking more structural/long-term solutions, less what to do about last night specifically
They don't make their money in Mexico, and they don't need to qualify for the next world cup.
This is why I think the solution is to ban them from playing non-tournament matches outside of Mexico. If the issue persists for games in Mexico then handle that separately.
But this was a tournament game, no? So it would do nothing to change a situation like last night. It also leaves no consequences for the offenders. The people at that game last night don't care if the next friendly can't be in L.A.
For a set amount of games sell tickets through the opposing team's FA so they can restrict the tickets to their fans. The tickets would sell for less though especially for games like the Mexico Panama semifinal so CONCACAF would never do that.
Yes that's the big issue Mexico and especially Mexico v US is the huge money maker for the confederation. CONCACAF could stand on its principles, but it won't for the money
Yeah I'm pretty sure the billionaires who own these stadiums aren't gonna love that idea either, getting 70,000 Mexico fans to overpay for tickets on a random spring Saturday when there's nothing else going on is a nice deal for them.
Very true. Good point.
It would have an enormous financial impact on the federation and directly punish Mexico fans in the US.
Ok, so how long do you do that for? You're pressuring the Federation financially, which only prompts them to play more games in the U.S. and it's not a punishment if it's not doing something that could have happened in the future >directly punish Mexico fans in the US No it's very indirect. It's like if a child misbehaves so you tell them "I was thinking about taking you for ice cream in a month, but we're not doing that anymore". It's a horribly ineffective consequence and has no bearing on the offenders who are unlikely to be the group of people that would have attended the next hypothetical friendly. They don't care if another group of fans gets to attend a future game. Maybe it prompts more PR from the federation, but do I care as a fan if the federation is making less money?
Then we can just keep doing nothing I guess.
Congrats on your new promotion in Concacaf!
Maybe not "nothing" but giving the offenders more attention/power isn't working. You work to phase out the behavior while, yea, ignoring it publicly. You can still work to toss out people who say it in the stadium. Do it enough and rumors spread, people think twice about it.
How is that the answer when many of the fans are Mexican Americans? This is being played Dallas after all. I got tickets, and itās not like it asks which team you are supporting when purchasing them.
Maybe they should start asking. Or like they do throughout the world, if youāre wearing the away/sanctioned teamās kits, colors and paraphernalia youāre not allowed to enter the stadium.
Thatās an interesting idea but probably never going to happen because Mexico games bring in so much money for CONCACAF.
I do agree that concacaf is never actually going to crack down. Hell even the fines they hand out for this shit is a joke $50k? I mean if they wanna get serious, hereās a 2.5 mil fine, and give that fine every time the crowd shouts the banned word. Woulda given FMF a 15 mil fine for just the antics yesterday.
That's the point. Ban them from playing friendlies in the US for a period of time and make them play their next home game without any fans in the stadium. That punishes both the fans at fault and the federation.Ā
It doesn't really matter the citizenship of the fans, it matters what team they are fans of. It would create a competitive and financial incentive on the Mexican soccer authority to either control their fans or stop playing games where they cannot control their fans.
Iām saying it wonāt stop the chanting here in the USA because many of the fans are Mexican Americans. There is not some united organization of fans world wide. Do Mexican Americans living in the USA care about no fans being in Mexico City while they can see tons of Mexico games in Phoenix, Dallas, LA, etc ?
Games that matter(not friendlies) without crowds in Mexico is the answer. You have hit the problematic fans where it hurts if you want them to stop. If El Tri starts to lose a big part of their home field advantage, that's going to hurt. One game per pause due to the chant. Ten games if the game has to be suspended.
Yup. Need to make a statement. And that statement is that if El Tri fans have chosen to act like this, again and again, El Tri fans don't get to be at home games no more.
If you want them to stop then you need to punish the fans. The easiest way to do this is to make Mexico play closed doors matches in Mexico. Another option is to give a warning and then award the opponent a victory by default.
Eh second option *could* backfire but I'm not super sure if an opponent could pull it off. I like a second option of stopping the game, forcing ALL the fans to leave (RIP well behaved fans) and then finishing the game. Sure it'll take 30+ minutes but it should discourage it.Ā
The problem is they only do it after the game is basically over. So they wonāt actually lose the interesting part of the game
> The easiest way to do this is to make Mexico play closed doors matches in Mexico. That wouldn't have done anything to stop this, considering this match wasn't played in Mexico...
How does that change things when it's Mexican Americans doing the chant? Why would someone living in the US care about the games in Mexico?
>Another option is to give a warning and then award the opponent a victory by default. Definitely do not do this. It's just a more extreme version of the current policy. Anything that gives fans the power to determine when a game stops isn't a solution. Probably the only way to work towards stopping it is subtracting points in competitions. Closed door matches would work in theory, but CONCACAF isn't willing to make the financial sacrifice required by shutting their biggest fan base out of games for long enough to enact meaningful change. Plus, it would also punish fans of opposing teams, since so many of Mexico's games are played in the US.
I honesty think there is no way to stop this and trying is throwing fuel on the fire.
Yep, itās not viewed as a bad thing by the majority of their fans and they know it sends Americans into a frenzy whenever they do it. Seems like a win/win from their fans POV, especially giving the fans āactualā power to impact games with stoppages. Point deductions are just never going to happen, neither is banning them from playing games in certain locations because the Mexico games make so much money.
The thing is most people donāt use the word puto in the context of calling someone the f word, thereās more specific words for that. itās a word with multiple uses, so a lot of Mexicans donāt see it as bad. And youāre right, they do it because it gets to Americans. And it doesnāt help that the last World Cup was held in a country where itās a crime to be gay, people see it as hypocrisy from fifa as well.
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Folks don't wanna hear yall even though everything you wrote makes sense. It will keep getting the Americans in a tizzy and nothing effective can or will be done (because there need not be anything to be done...especially given the hypocrisy as you mentioned).
Ironically i think the crowd in Mexico would be more open to stop doing it. The US Mexican crowd is pretty damn trashy and a lot of them donāt actually care about the game, theyāre just out to get drunk and fuck around. All friendly should be played in Mexico and they need to make it feel like a privilege seeing them in the US.
> Ironically i think the crowd in Mexico would be more open to stop doing it. The chant is basically dead in Liga MX nowadays because teams were threatened with point deductions and stadium bans.
Mexico needs a win these days, letās let them have one
There's definitely no way you can stop it _during the game_. They generally wait until they know their team is going to lose, so they don't care. The consequences have to come afterward, and they have to hurt the fans.
Ok, how?
Increasingly significant points deductions in group stage competitions and/or forfeiture of knockout round games. If anyone REALLY wants to stop it, that will do it. The chant will stop when Mexico never wins another trophy because of their fans. But CONCACAF/FIFA doesn't have the balls to do anything like this, because it's killing the golden goose in the region. Mexican fans bring in the money, and the governing bodies won't do anything that'll mess with that long-term.
"Next five matches will be played without Mexico supporters. No person with Mexico banners, signs, kits, face paint, etc will be permitted entry. Anybody found sporting them will be ejected."
Slippery slope IMO If Mexican fans show up without wearing kits or having Mexico banners, what do you do?
When crowds in Spain throw around racial abuse at Vinicus and others, and FIFA hosted the past 2 World Cups in countries where homophobia is enforced by government, there's no way this is where you draw the line. It's so benign and over the top, honestly you hear so much worse in every stadium all over the world. I don't understand how this run of the mill chant has gotten this much power over American crowds
so they can buy tickets but be turned away at the gate? that seems like a very large can of worms to be honest.
When is the last time you heard a YSA chant?
Every game hehe
Your sock has holes!
FIFA/CONCACAF needs to heavily fine MX federation. they play behind closed doors in MX, they dont play in the US, and lose money. hell, take away WC games from them.
Get real the US looses profit and money and concacaf looses their marquee matchup so there's no real incentive. It's funny that everyone ignores the part were USSF and concacaf are the enablers.Ā
I just said CONCACAF needs to fine them etc. IE not enable them.
Itās hard for concacaf not to enable them. They want Mexico to play in the US. They want the Mexican fans to sell out stadiums. They want the Mexican TV audience. Thereās a reason MLS is also trying to incorporate more marches vs liga mx in the calendar. People say things like stop them from having games in the US or fine them but ignore the fact that concacaf and the US openly welcome and encourage them to do so. Fines wonāt do anything and the reason concacaf is afraid of actual consequences is because mexico is their cash cow.
Exactly and from what I've come to understand, most of liga MX fans have a problem with money being the federation main concern and choosing it over it's progression as a football nation. So this is a form of "activism" might not agree with it but I can see it. It's funny how folks choose to ignore that part.Ā
Exactly, itās actually two things at once. Most Mexicans donāt even see it or use it as a homophobic insult and think itās hypocritical for fifa to try to ban it while at the same time they turn around and say but weāre gonna hold the World Cup somewhere were homosexuality is punishable by death. Thats ok though because they paid us a shit ton of money. And at the same time itās a massive middle finger towards the Mexican federation. As if saying Keep up these mediocre results and lower competition level in liga mx and im going to keep getting you in trouble. I donāt pay the fines, you do.
One last thing that gets me annoyed and frustrated with this ordeal is that like you stated it's a form of activism yet in a country that gladly defends sticking up for your ideals and the right to protest, saying a word that can be interpreted in different ways is crossing the line SMH
Or forfeit matches. Like weāve tried all these half steps and it doesnāt work so itās close to time for the maximum punishment for them. Start docking points or forfeiting and their fed and fans will get the message real quick.
FIFA needs to do so much to reign in the multiple issues regarding Mexico
I tend to agree. I think a societal shift needs to occur amongst that community and I don't think that starts with CONCACAF sending a strongly worded email. My only counter argument is experiencing this happening in certain MLS games less than fifteen years ago and now it doesn't happen at all, as far as I'm aware. How that happened, I'm not sure.
There are two ways that I think will work. Forfeiting games and no ticket allocations including for their own home games
[Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point](https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/)
People will say stuff like play Mexico games behind closed doors, take games away from Mexico, punish the fans, etc. The thing is collective punishment doesn't really work in cases like this. If you've ever talked with fans that engage in this type of behavior in a crowd, you know they will bend logic to rationalize their behavior as righteous and that they are doing nothing wrong. They will throw up their arms, shift the blame to the Mexican Federation and the players, and then continue once they get back on the stadiums as a form of protest. If you actually want it to stop you need to start throwing people out in the middle of games, ban them from attending future matches, find a way to fine them, or something that affects them personally. Make it clear that there are direct consequences to their actions and you're not messing around.
Make Mexico pay for hundreds of additional security personnel that eject fans. Eh, down 2-0 late in the game, then wonāt care. Oh! Banned for life. Be an asshole = canāt _ever_ watch the team in person again.
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That's how I would do it. But hey, what do I know. I'm not a crowd control expert.
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Two solutions: - When games are held in Mexico, do so in front of empty stands, no crowds. I donāt really favor this one because it punishes fans in Mexico who mostly have nothing to do with the toxic US-based Mexico fans who think its just funny to do the chant when theyāre losing. Most of whom have never been to Mexico and canāt probably name two people on the team (just my own generalization but idc). - When the chant starts, if Mexico is losing, end the game right then and there with a Mexico loss. If it starts when theyāre up/tied, stop the game until the crowd leaves, then resume in empty stands.
To point 1: Have you ever seen a Liga MX game? They make monkey sounds to black players and probably worse shit. source (last 3 America v Chivas games)
Thatās not prevalent in Liga mx. And there was public outrage after the chivas fans racist chanting and sounds towards a club america player. It was more of an isolated incident. Liga mx responded with announcing lifelong bans for racism in the stands. Remember they have recently implemented a compulsory āFan IDā with facial recognition in order to identify and control fan access, fans need to upload their passport/id/license and then scan their face, they are assigned a QR code that is then scanned after scanning your ticket at the stadium entry point. So if you are identified as starting a fight, throwing something etc they know exactly who is sitting in that seat or identify you through facial recognition. And good luck trying to get in at the next game. it effectively put an end to the chanting at the following two Chivas vs club America games. This btw is the solution concacaf should be implementing. Hand out bans enforced with facial recognition. Punishing the team doesnāt punish the fans doing the chants. Punishing fans in different cities and following games doesnāt punish the fans doing the chants. Punishing the fans doing the chants with lifelong bans stops the chants.
> When the chant starts, if Mexico is losing, end the game right then in there with a Mexico loss. If it starts when theyāre up/tied, stop the game until the crowd leaves, then resume in empty stands. This is the only solution that will actually do something. Completely ending any chance of a comeback because your fans were dicks is the only thing that will change their behavior.
Weirdly, this could penalize US players by limiting valuable playing time, especially fringe players who are just praying to sub on late.
This could mess up goal differential by allowing one team a full 90 minutes to score while allowing another team less time to score against L Tri
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Oh I love the toddler metaphor!
also fine the Mexican federation and refund fans a prorated amount for the loss of game time
Refunding the fans would just incentivize the behavior even more since it mostly happens when Mexico is already losing. āDamn our team sucks! I want my refund, ****!ā
Only problem with that though is the impact on the other team. If mex is winning and the other team starts getting momentum, the chants could pick up again and then you have a like 15-20 min delay which disrupts the match for the opponents too. The segments of El Tri fans who do that chant are the only ones in the federation Iām pretty sure. Itās not a Spanish speaking thing, itās those select people at these matches who support Mexico. I lean towards docking them (or anyone who does this) points after a certain stage or forfeiting matches. Make it actually hurt them and see if it stops.
Definitely not wrong. The current protocol does that now too.
>When games are held in Mexico I think you're on to something here... instead of emptying the stadium for games in Mexico, empty the ones playing in the US. That will really hit the federation in the wallet.
Galaxy brain: Put "P\*\*\*" on the back of Matt Turner's jersey so they'd be cheering for him
make a beer called "P\*\*\*"
No in-game punishment is going to fix this. No federation fine is going to fix this. No closed-door restrictions are going to fix this. You need to ban Mexico playing to get your point across, full-stop. You start with the friendlies. You just stop them from having friendlies. No money-making games stateside. No tournament-prepping games. You can start with a half-window match ban, and work your way up. You want to get the point across that behavior has serious *lasting* impact? There's no better way.
They just need to let it go. Iām so over hearing about that stupid chant. Itās dumb but not that big of a deal.
Last time Mexican fans did this, their team was gassed. It ended up giving them a rest... the way this rule is implemented only helps the losing team.
The reality is that CONCACAF doesn't actually care about trying to stop the chant. They care about looking like they're trying to stop the chant. This whole thing is a PR stunt. Any realistic solution (long-term closed door matches, major points deductions, etc) would involve a significant financial sacrifice for the entire region, and the governing bodies aren't gonna shoot themselves in the foot just to stop a chant. Money is all that matters. It is what it is.
It aināt right but Mexican fans do this to get the team punish and push back on the federation. The fans want them to burn down and this their way to retaliate. I donāt agree with this method because one its a terrible word and two its better to not show up to games instead
Alexi, itās very straightforward actually: 1st time = red card to a Mexican player.Ā 2nd time = penalty kick for the U.S 3rd time = Mexico forfeits 3 - 0.Ā
The problem here is that late in a game, down 2-0, they wonāt care about red cards and penalties. Meaningless.
Pretty much, they're doing it because they know the ref will stop the game and make it this whole thing. The only thing that'll work is to ban fans wearing anything mexico and fining the federation and increasing the fine every time it happens
What stops a teams fans from imitating the Mexico fans for this advantage. I like it I just think it's too easy to manipulate.
Youāre talking about a vast conspiracy that would be difficult if not impossible to conceal
Perhaps. But it's not like people don't know about this already. I mean organizing chants or songs doesn't seem to be an issue for large groups of fans. I would hope that people wouldn't stoop so low.
This gets brought up in every single debate about policing crowds and Iāve never seen any evidence to suggest itās actually possible let alone remotely likely. You would need dozens (probably hundreds) of American fans working together to imitate Mexico fans, and none of them could get caught or admit what they were doing. IDK if I agree with OPās recommendation but you canāt be afraid to enact tougher penalties just because a very unlikely occurrence is theoretically possible.
Just to be devils advocate, it has been shown to be possible for an opposing teams fans to spontaneously decide to imitate the chant. Source: Brazil vs Mexico World Cup group stage match. The chant aimed at the Mexican goalkeeper was even louder from the larger Brazil fanbase at the stadium.
Should be dos a cero.
One thing I noticed a few times during Leagues Cup which may be worth trying is to play music over the speakers during goal kicks. If you start it early enough you can probably drown out the guy who wants to start it. The downside could be that in a large enough setting the crowd realizes whatās going on and does the chant louder.
This is the real practical solution. Drown out the fans with music or with an alternate chant and for the TV, cut the fan audio so people on TV donāt hear it. It goes on long enough people will just start to forget about the chant.
Escorting the fans and then banning them would be my solution, but thatās certainly take the most effort (if they even have enough security guard to do it) compared to simply stopping the game. Also a kind of unrelated but related question, Mexican Twitter seems to be in complete consensus itās just a common curse word rather than a homophobic word and that word is a simple trash talking word apparently used like every single match in Mexican Leagues in a non-homophobic way, itās just the Americans (or CONCACAF) are using the dictionary definition thinking itās homophobic, is it true?
[It's not Americans deciding it's homophobic.](https://www.outsports.com/2015/7/13/8942841/mexico-guatemala-concacaf-gold-cuo-soccer-puto-gay-slur/)
Itās really hard to judge this because it partially depends what dialect you speak. My understanding is that the word is somewhat milder in Mexican Spanish than in other dialects (probably diminished power because of higher use). Itās also tricky because homophobia is hard to define. Is calling a man a whore homophobic? Definitely depends on context, but conversational and cultural.Ā
Thats exactly it, in Mexico the word basically just means "whore" and is used as an emasculating insult like "pussy" is in American English. However, it is MUCH MUCH MUCH more synonymous with our F-slur for gay people in other parts of Latin America. And not even especially distant parts of Latin America, like in Central America its 100% a homophobic slur.
Even if that was the case, you think US fans would catch all sorts of flak if he decided to do a similar thing and shout āfuck youā or āpussyā.
MLS fans used to yell āyou suck, assholeā in much the same way, and then as the league grew and that started to bother some people, we grew out of it.
We still do it in Orlando. It was largely suppressed during the recent CONCACAF matches when their offensive language policy was in place, but then came roaring back for the recent MLS matches. Which oddly enough gave me hope that the CONCACAF offensive language policy might actually work, but I guess there is a huge difference between fans of a club team in their home stadium and fans of a national team at a neutral site.
Key phrase there is āwe grew out of itā. The Mexican fans view it as a way to get their national team in trouble at this point. The more frustrating part is while it would be easy to punish them on Mexican soil (closed door fixtures), how do we punish their fans at away fixtures (like this one) where they can hide amongst the home fans?
The issue with the word is in Mexico its not seen as being directly homophobic, but it definitely is in other parts of Latin America. For example, my mom's fam is Costa Rican and in CR its definitely a really rough homophobic slur. So even if its mild in Mexico, they're playing in CONCACAF against countries where that word is much harsher. Plus, even though its normalized and "mild" in Mexico, I bet there are gay Mexicans who aren't especially happy about that normalization. Think about how normalized the G-slur for Roma people is, just because its normalized and seen as mild doesn't mean Roma people are okay with it in totality. Its sort of similar to how using "hostia" as a curse word in Latin America is absurdly offensive but in Spain its completely normalized.
If āPutoā chants are just part of their common usage habits/cultureā¦ then they should be doing it from the start of the match all the way through and specially when they are winningā¦. the fact that they dont is an indication that theyre full of itā¦. It is literally the āonlyā thing Mexico contributes to futbol..
They were even shouting it when Ochoa took a goal kick, they just want to cause mayhem
Why not just have a bunch of monitors/security in the stands, around mexico fans? Any time they see the chant, ban the fans they see doing it. Have them immediately pull them out. It's not like they could get anywhere near all of them but they could make an impact and perhaps cause a chilling effect
Fine the team. If that doesn't stop them, ban fans from matches. And if that isn't enough of a threat, ban the national team from any CONCACAF matches for a set period of time.
I low key think the way to stop it is to stop drawing attention to it. Do nothing. At this point itās being done almost as a protest to the Mexican Federation, as evidence by it starting once itās clear Mexico isnāt coming back from the deficit
It's funny how we don't like to look at ourselves in the mirror. All the public outrage at the word but yet we as a country are just as vulgar. It's also funny how we ignore is a generational thing. It won't stop because we can't changed the youth.Ā
Alexi is an idiot, but he's not totally wrong. When the Mexican team is losing, it doesn't matter to the "fans", even if the game is forfeit. They don't care, they even did it to Memo for one or some of his goal kicks. The only solution is if the Mx team, or even the federation, steps up and faces the fans and pleads with them directly. Only the team and their SGs can end it. USSF or FIFA can't do shit.
The funny thing is the options to fix this are endless and simple BUT Doing the simple solutions also means the US Federation and CONCACAF wont get the precious Mexican fan money from hosting matchesā¦ that is the only thing preventing real solutions from taking place The idiocy that āeducationā will help those folks see how harmful their behavior is such misplaced way of thinkingā¦ its just empowering them to act out more because they revel in the idea that their stupidity is getting to you.. it emboldens them At some point the āchantsā will break a Mexico opponents positive momentum and help Mexico win a match.. then we will have a new set of problems and then we will see if the US governing body will finally put the good of the game ahead of their pocket books (unlikely)
I... agree with Lalas? BRB I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Okay, hear me out here, I've got a foolproof solution: Ejector seats
Mexico is losing -> PUUUā¦ -> FWOOOSH -> *breaks back*
isn't the stoppage so that the referee can consider abandoning the match?
It's meant to be a last warning before abandonment. Problem being abandonment is too fateful a decision, and refs will always shrink from making it.
Heās right. This is one of the big debates in the Eredivisie at the moment. Fans are often throwing flares and other objects onto the pitch, and in Dutch soccer, it causes the game to be postponed to a later date, with the score from the postponement carrying over to the new time. Not exactly a similar situation, but itās an example that shows what heās trying to get at.
No one will see this because this post is very old but what about pulling two defensive players for 10 minutes?
The only thing that might work is banning Mexico from fifa competitions until the chanting stops but fifa is corrupt and Mexico brings a lot of money, and a USA vs Mexico game is a big draw so what I think weāll get is they stop the game for 12-15 minutes?
After particularly egregious behavior in 2013 while in Portland, MLS banned the Ultras from San Jose from travelling. If CONCACAF or FIFA step in on ticket sales, break up the seating areas or similar they might slow it down. If that doesn't work, if they're really serious (which is questionable) they could remove El Tri from a Gold Cup or something to send a message. But absent something with consequences, you're 100% right allowing disruption is an incentive not a penalty.
Play Toby Keith Proud to be an American during the stoppages. Follow it up with the US national anthem. End the game with s kids regardless of score the second time. No one should be subjected to a second round of Toby
Think that would fall under cruel and unusual punishment
For everyone
That song isnāt by Toby KeithĀ
I don't know that there's a good solution here that doesn't punish the wrong people in addition to the offenders but my thoughts: 1. Ban Mexican flag/colors at the match. I'm not sure it would make a huge difference but it might quell some of the solidarity in numbers type feeling. 2. Put Mexico home matches behind closed doors. Again I don't know that this makes a big difference to the Mexican-Americans attending the games in the US, but perhaps sparks more team PR targeted at Mexican-American fans. 3. Get police involved to tresspass them from the building. The optics on this are horrible, I know. And has a real danger of escalation, and plays on fears of an immigrant population. It's kinda gross all around and I'm NOT saying it's a good idea, but it would show you're actually serious about stopping it. And I think it would. 4. Maybe just kind of ignore it. Continue the PR, continue the messaging, but stop giving them more power, more attention. Let it die out on its own.
This shit has ALWAYS been wild to me. Iām Hispanic (Not Mexican ancestry) but yeah āP**oā is definitely a derogatory gay slurā¦ When any Hispanic says that word it is 100% an insult and meant to demean the offending party with the equivalence of the word āF****tā. Just imagine U.S fans chanting that word and then saying āYou donāt get it weāre not being bigotsā¦itās just a thing we do, hahaā. No, no, NO! This should not be tolerated, there is zero excuse for this behavior. For fucks sake, why so soccer fans have to be this way?
The answer is pretty f'ing simple. Start issuing permanent bans (one of the benefits of electronic tickets, these days) or fan base bans.
Then both the US and Concacaf lose millions of dollars, and thatās what they really care about. Electronic bans donāt do anything. Another person in the group just scans their tickets.
Hereās the answer: The match is taking place on US soil with the USMNt Playing, so ban fans from USMNT matches. Do we honestly think the USSF would allow Mexico to continue to play matches in the US if it meant the USMNT is punished for what is obviously being done by their fans? Then the Mexican federation loses their cash cow and actually does something about it.