No place for violence in sports

IT was most regrettable reading about the brawl that broke out among football fans at the Bandar Tasik Selatan LRT station in Kuala Lumpur. Public transport facilities were damaged, though fortunately no injuries were reported (“LRT station damaged in brawl between football hooligans”, The Star, Dec 21; online at bit.ly/40cjqpJ).

As a young broadcast journalist attached to the sports desk of one of Malaysia’s leading broadcast networks, I did my fair share of reporting on football games, and I know the atmosphere during a match can be intense, to say the least. Emotions run high and it can be overwhelming. But once the match is over, it’s time to come back down to earth. Do not take the excitement from a match and turn it into ugly hooliganism. Football hooliganism is not new, of course, being especially notorious in Britain. It has no place in Malaysia, or any society, actually.