more on Football as social phenomenon

And once again, I can't escape from football. Italy has just beaten Germany a few minutes ago, and I hear people celebrating all around. It seems I'm surrounded by Italians (or perhaps there's only a few of them, but very noisy).

Last Friday I was in La Bourse when Italy had just won another match. It was also quite an experience. Tifosi took over the stairs of the building where my friends of the MBA were celebrating their own success only a couple of hours before. There were several hundreds of them, blocking the traffic, shouting like crazy, and waving Italian flags. A few policemen were there to control the situation, although they were basically just looking without saying much. How would they dare to ... Just in front of their eyes dozens of cars overstuffed with people inside, in the boot, on the top, ... waiving more flags and blowing their horns no stop. Even Belgian police knows that sometimes they have to ignore the offences to the Code de la Route. You simply cannot contend against a mass after a football match.

What I regret is that this social power of football -which is known to be good for politics, did not help much to stopping the civil war in Côte d'Ivore (Ivory Coast). The leaders of the country expected that a successful national team with players from both sides would bring the hostilities to an end. Wouldn't that have been nice, an African world champion that brings reconciliation through sports?