More hypocritical linking to explicit real-life soccer violence!
The behavior shown in this clip is unacceptable. How unacceptable? You won’t know unless you watch it, right?
The clip supposedly shows a fight between two so-called baby-squads in Sweden: Bajen Baby Squad consists of teenage, hardcore fans of Stockholm-based Hammarby IF (or “Bajen”), while Baby Boys are their counterparts from AIK, a popular team from Solna, just outside of Stockholm (think Saugus or Revere if you’re a Bostonian). I think this fight is from last year, but it could be from 2003.
The oldest soccer firm in Sweden is Firman Boys, which was formed by a group of AIK fans in the early 1990’s and garnered quite a bit of notoriety. Its oldest rival is DFG (fans of Stockholm’s Djurgården’s IF), while Wisemen from Göteborg and Hammarby’s KGB are more recent entries. The baby squads form a farm system of sorts for pugilistic teenage soccer fans.
The powers that be don’t much like soccer firms and have teamed up with tabloid daily Aftonbladet to sell less violent soccer fans on pink bracelets with the text “Love Soccer” on them. They even made players in Sweden’s elite league Allsvenskan wear them. So the next time you think your job is humiliating, at least be happy you don’t have wear a pink bracelet.
