By now we all know about Atlanta Beat goalkeeper Hope Solo’s so-called “rant” on Twitter following the Beat’s meeting with the Boston Breakers last night at Harvard Stadium. It’s not the first time Solo has taken to Twitter to air her grievances, nor is it the first time the ‘keeper has spoken her mind. Since everyone else in the online world of WPS is weighing in and I’m often far wordier than Twitter’s 140 character limit allows, here goes…
If racist stuff was said, that’s pretty shitty. Obviously. I don’t need to go into the hows and whys.
With that said – a little controversy never hurts. People are talking about it. On Twitter and Big Soccer and in other places in the little corner of the internet that WPS fans have carved out for ourselves – for now. But that there is a problem, even a supposed one, points to another step towards real legitimacy for WPS, even if it’s in an ugly and sort-of-strange new-media way (a four tweet “rant,” many twitter replies, blog posts [oh, hi!], message-board posts, etc.). Let’s assume that The Riptide is telling the truth – that the worst thing said was “you suck.” If you take the racist part out – it becomes about a player being angry about being heckled by a supporters group. And supporters groups should be heckling the players (again, as long as the racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. line isn’t crossed). It’s part of the argument I was [poorly] making about being a fan of your club first, league second. You can be wowed by Marta’s skill, think Hope Solo is the greatest thing since sliced bread when she’s in a US jersey, or be just as impressed by the Lilly Legend as anyone else – until they step on the field against your team – then they’re the enemy. Heckle away! I’ve been a NJ Devils fan for a long time, but when Martin Brodeur put on the red and white for Canada at the Vancouver Olympics, you bet I was rooting for him to have a horrible game. I sort-of-support the Red Bulls, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t jump off my couch and cheer when the LA Galaxy’s Landon Donovan scored that goal against Algeria. But when the Galaxy come to Red Bull Arena next Saturday, I kind of hope Landon has a bad game. And so on.
And that a player had problems with a supporters group – real or imagined – is a sign of passionate fan support, which is certainly not a bad thing. That there was a supporter’s group there in the first place, and apparently loud enough to create a stir, is a credit to The Riptide.
Wasn’t Boston Breakers GM Andy Crossley the one who said “We need to get out of the ghetto of being a role model for girls. You can’t make dads feel like they’re visiting Chuck E. Cheese’s”? And also the one who said, via a tweet during a WPSChat “I want to see a WPS player be fined for a tweet. Like Mark Cuban. Push the envelope and create buzz.” And speaking of tweets, Solo herself once twittered: “Watching the seattle philly game…now these are great soccer fans! How do we bring this atmosphere and energy to the womens game?” I fully understand that a player accusing a club or their fans of racism is something that’s very serious. Racism/racist chants are something that’s been part of soccer’s ugly underbelly for a long time, hence things like “Show Racism the Red Card” and those kind of accusations leveled at anyone, are plenty hurtful in their own right. While no one has been fined and neither the league or any of the parties involved have released an official statement on the matter as of yet – and might not ever – it would seem that Andy Crossley, Hope Solo, and perhaps to a greater extent all WPS fans over the age of 12, sort of got their wish, albeit perhaps not in the way we’d imagined. However serious or not this incident proves to be, it’s launched a larger discussion: about how the league/teams should deal with racism/sexism/etc. at matches. And about the role of supporters groups in WPS, which again, for the 500th time, isn’t a bad thing.
Seventeen Letters 