Dear Mr. Commissioner:
Let's cut to the chase:
Toronto FC Fans Throwing Full Bottle at Freddie Ljungberg from 12th Minute on Vimeo.
A couple of years ago you attended a match in Toronto and came in your pants when the fans buried the corner kick takers in streamers. You simply couldn't shut up about how wonderful it was to have all these "wonderful fans" who brought so much "passion" to the game.
A couple of days later, Michael Wilbon of ESPNs' Pardon the Interruption made some disparaging remarks about the whole thing being "bush league" and you embarassed both yourself and the league by engaging him on the topic, defending the practice as being "part of the culture".
And of course the fans in Toronto ate it up.
Then, a couple weeks later the same thing happened in Columbus and you had a coronary over "interference with the game". You issued two statements that week roundly condemning the practice of throwing stuff at players and issued dire threats about the punishments that would be meted out if and when anything of the sort happened again.
In Columbus.
And both the Crew and other teams have acted like storm troopers whenever the menace of 2 ounces of crepe paper rears it's ugly head. League policy now says that while fans may throw streamers, they can't throw them at the field. Throwing them at each other is permitted, although why anyone would bother is a complete nystery.
Meanwhile, week after week, game after game, players at BMO are still getting buried in streamers, garbage, beer, hunks of the stadium and anything else the fans up there can get their hands on.
With all due respect, Mr. Garber, when are you going to say something – and do something – about it?
We've heard the same crap for three years now: it's just a few miscreants, they get dealt with, blah, blah, blah.
Unfortunately either a) that's simply not true or b) they keep coming up with a couple dozen brand new miscreants each week.
Of course that's not terribly hard up there, but that's another column.
When can we expect a public statement about this? When can we expect to hear that the league is taking action? When will we get the news that TFC has been told to clean up their act or face serious fines and sanctions?
When are you going to get serious?