Now this is new territory for me and I was unaware that this sort of thing existed. I would imagine that it is a by-product of the super PC times that we find ourselves in these days. In the waning minutes of the CONCACAF final between rivals Mexico and the United States, play completely stopped and it wasn't immediately evident why that was. We just saw both teams standing in the middle of the field while they waited for the ref's permission to continue.
This was always going to be a heated game between rivals Mexico and USA as the two sides really seem to dislike one another and feel a real sense of national pride at these outings. The fans are known for being extremely rowdy at these matchups and things can get nasty very quickly. I recall a time in the past when it was difficult for the game to carry on in Mexico because the fans kept throwing things at the American players.
I don't recall exactly what year that was but you can see that behind Landon Donovan that there are two police with riot shields attempting to guard him from things being thrown at him. After that match there were interviews and players stated they were hit by rocks, coins, and batteries when the game was going on. I guess if you were trying to be nice you would call the Mexican fans "passionate" instead of "insane."
Well at the final this year in CONCACAF took place in Arlington, Texas and I suspect that locations was chosen so that they could accommodate a large amount of fans from Mexico. There was no violence in the stands as far as I am aware of, nor was anything thrown at players. This can probably be attributed to the fact that the fans are a lot further away from the game than the games in Mexico and possibly because there is a lot more security at a game in USA.
This didn't stop the fans from shouting things though and one of these things resulted in the game being forced to stop twice. I have never seen this before but it appeared on the jumbotron in the stadium.
I would imagine that this is probably very difficult to enforce when hundreds or thousands of people who are already amped up are all chanting together and if authorities were to attempt to remove a few people or a few dozen people I can see it turning into a riot really fast.
The game was simply stopped and announcements were made to the crowd in English and Spanish. I noticed that my audio was being messed with as it got real quiet and I suspect this is because the broadcasters don't want to give the chanters any sort of notoriety because this might encourage future attendees to do the same thing or something. This was the reasoning why any streakers or anyone who rushes the field will not even get their 5 minutes of fame on television because the cameras will pan away from it if it ever happens.
I had to look up what it was that they were chanting and when it actually happened. Apparently a tradition of sorts when the opposing team's keeper is taking a free kick they will chant out a gay-bashing slur that includes the word "puto" which according to sources that I have read is a term related to male prostitutes and basically translates to "faggot."
When I dug a bit deeper I found out that the tradition of this chant, and the repercussions for the fans doing it, has been going on for a long time. The team gets punished when this happens and Mexico's national team has been fined over $650,000 over the years. Mexico has pleaded with the fans to stop doing this including making commercials featuring the national team players telling the fans to cut it out.
When the break first happened I was annoyed because I thought that it was stupid to stop a game because people are being offensive with their chants. I have mixed feelings about this because in my mind this can kind of be fun unless it turns violent. Unfortunately if you think about it there is a lot of opportunity for exactly this to turn violent as the chants start to enrage supporters of the other side. Shit could get out of hand fast in the stands and there really isn't anything else they can do but to halt the game until the fans stop.
The problem that we faced in the CONCACAF final was that by the 88th minute, the USA already had a really solid and almost impossible to overturn lead so the fans likely no longer cared if the game would be called off. I have to at least somewhat admire the fans dedication, even though it is done in a scumbag sort of way.
Oh and by the way the USA are the CONCACAF champions of 2024, if anyone cares about that :P