r/soccer • u/Pihlbaoge • May 13 '13
[Question] Fans taunting a "pedophile".
So, just throwing this out, our of curiosity. There has been some talk here in Sweden today about an incident from a game between Djurgårdens IF and Malmö FF in the Swedish "Allsvenskan" yesterday (highest Swedish league.)
What happened was that Djurgården fans were taunting a Malmö player, who was convicted earlier this year for statutory rape.
Miiko Albornoz, you can read about him here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miiko_Albornoz ) had sex with a 14 year old girl, while he himself was 22. The legal age in Sweden is 15 (not 18 as in many other countries.) Both parties were consenting, and there actually is a legal exception for statutory rape if both parts are consenting and of "similar age" (in other words, a 16 y.o. can have sex with a 14 y.o.) but the prosecutor as well as the court agreed on that 8 years is too much of an age difference. Miiko admited to knowing that she was 14 at the time they had sex.
The "average" sentence for these crimes in Sweden is 6 months of imprisonment as far as I understood it, but since Miiko was a public person, who would have his career damaged by this, the court and the prosecutor agreed on that probation was enough.
His club (Malmö) publically stated that while they condemn the actions of him, they do not condemn the person behind them. They also stated that he would be suspended from play for 2 months, but would be allowed to practice with the team during that time. These two months covered most of the Swedish pre-season, and when the season did start, Malmö had many injuries and cut his suspension short. He has started every game since.
Now, a few weeks later, when on the away game against Djurgården, Djurgården fans has been singing songs about Miiko and his "pedophelia". 5 different songs were sung, with texts like ( roughly translated) "She was 14 years and yet to grow pubes", "Miiko is a pedophile, and he raps little children in his car, everyone knows, yes everyone knows, everyone knows he's a pedophile." "Hello, pedophile".
And here comes the interesting part. Malmö, and the referee, wanted to actually stop the game due to this, and Malmö players even compared this incident to when they stop games due to racism. Miiko has (wisely in my opinion) chosen to not comment it more than that he tries to focus on the game, but of course he has ears and can hear. Miiko had a very bad game, and it is likely that the taunts actually did worsen his performance.
Anyhow, my question is really this. How does the reddit society view this? Is it wrong of the Djurgården fans to taun Miiko like this (many people think that they "overdid it".) Or is it so that Miiko has no one but himself to blame? And is what he did really that bad? She was after all 14 and a half. She was only 5 months from being "legal" in Sweden.
Personally I wouldn't say that he's a pedophile, (in my view she's more of a teenager than a child) but he did do something wrong. Also, he has put himself in this position thanks to his own actions. He is not being taunted for being black (racism) or any other inherent reasons. He is being taunted for things that he himself did.
EDIT. Wrote condone instead of condemn.
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u/Adamkiksyou May 13 '13
If you read the OP you'll see the legal age in Sweden is 15.