Commentary
It’s been fashionable in Canada for many years now to mock those of us who have played and followed the world’s beautiful game.
As an advocate for freedom of speech, those who take joy from disparaging the tastes of others are certainly entitled to do so, although it has always struck me as an odd and unnecessary social strategy. For many of its victims, it was taken as the mainstream’s way of letting us know we don’t belong within it; that we are “others” or as they say in Quebec, “les autres.”
It could be that fans of one game see fans of another game as a threat, or it could be a matter of people seeking social status by associating with what they view as superior while simultaneously disassociating themselves from anything less than that. The latter is a common practice, for instance, among Canadian NFL fans who feel the need to disparage the Canadian Football League without ever considering that if they really liked football, they could (and should) be a fan of both….