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HONG KONG: From spitting and booing to full-scale riots, Chinese
fans loom as a potential public relations disaster for the Beijing
Olympics.
Organizers have spent millions of dollars on
“civilizing” their notoriously unruly spectators, fearing a
repeat of rowdy scenes that regularly mar football and basketball
matches here.
“You cannot deny it—the difficult area in
staging a civilized Olympics rests in the quality of the people,”
senior Games organizer Zhang Faqiang told state media.
Leaving nothing to chance, officials have
organized lessons in cheering, queuing and sportsmanship for home
spectators, many of whom have little experience of such events.
But concern remains over possible flare-ups
which would embarrass the hosts in front of a worldwide audience
running into billions.
In June, angry fans turned on the national
football team during their 1-0 defeat to Qatar, booing, hurling
bottles and fighting in the latest of a series of unseemly
incidents.
Back in 2004, hundreds of incensed supporters
blockaded the Japanese team hotel in Beijing after their Asian Cup
final victory over China, creating unwelcome headlines abroad.
Similar trouble erupted during this year’s
East Asian Cup when the crowd jeered and threw rubbish at the
Japanese team, who were also abused during the 2007 Women’s World
Cup in China.
The checkered history prompted Japanese Prime
Minister Yasuo Fukuda to urge Chinese fans, often resentful over
Japan’s invasion of the 1930s and 1940s, not to boo Olympic
athletes from his country.
“Many Chinese people may cheer only for
Chinese athletes. That would be all right,” Fukuda said in May,
according to Japanese media.
“But if they criticize opponent nations and do
something like booing against them, it will provoke antipathy among
people of these nations.”
Crowd behavior has even caused concern among
Chinese Olympians, particularly after unsporting scenes at the
“Bird’s Nest” Olympic Stadium.
At an athletics event in May, fans ignored other
competitors to focus almost exclusively on Liu Xiang, leaving the
arena in droves after the star hurdler’s race was over.
“Some of them went to the stadium to watch Liu
and some to see the stadium itself. But after Liu Xiang completed
his performance, a lot of them just left the stadium,” said table
tennis legend Deng Yaping.
“Sometimes we Chinese pay disproportionate
attention toward the gold-medal winners,” she added. “The
essence of sports spirit deserves more respect.”
While China will use a massive security presence
to keep violence in check, enforcing notions of sportsmanship and
fair play is not so easy.
In a country with limited sporting culture, some
spectators have little knowledge of what is and isn’t acceptable
at major events.
-- AFP
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