The director of a soccer team from the Dutch city of Utrecht has vowed to punish fans who sang anti-Semitic chants during a recent match. “Racism will not be tolerated in the stadium,” Wilco van Schaik, general director of FC Utrecht, told the Dutch news agency ANP. The report did not specify what steps would…
Ajax, the Dutch, the War: The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe’s Darkest Hour By Simon Kuper Nation Books, 257 pages, $15.99 Bill Shankly, the legendary soccer coach of the British club Liverpool FC, is often quoted as saying, “Football is not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that.” The attribution…
A new Israeli soccer star is on the rise. Tomer Hemed turned Israel’s recent World Cup qualifying games against Luxembourg into his own personal coming out party. The 25-year-old striker scored a hat trick in Israel’s 6-0 win in Luxembourg City last Friday, and then followed it up with two more goals in a 3-0…
With a population of just over 23,000, the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona doesn’t often get a chance to stand out on the map of Israel. On Thursday, however, the city’s Israeli Premier League soccer club took a big step towards putting its hometown on the map in Europe. This past spring, Hapoel Ironi…
A pattern of rhythmic claps emanated from the upper deck of the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., as North London’s Tottenham Hotspur attempted to best the New York Red Bulls in a preseason exhibition soccer game this summer. But this was no average expression of fandom: Each round of claps was punctuated by a…
A French judge has fined a French soccer fan for making a Hitler salute at a match and banned him from entering his city’s main stadium. The court in Brest, in western France, imposed a $910 fine on the 32-year-old man, according to the news site Paris Depeches. He was seen making the Hitler salute…
So how is that the current Prime Minister of Israel has been using crutches for the past two months in order to move from place to place, and we haven’t even seen one photo? On Monday, Netanyahu arrived at the Knesset for the first time since he tore a tendon during a soccer match with…
In the shadow of the Euro 2012 soccer championship, a smaller yet more intellectually profound sports event, took place last week in Haifa. Israel hosted the so-called Authors’ Euro, an international tournament of national soccer teams consisting of writers and poets. For three days, German, Italian and Israeli authors battled for the cup. In between,…
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