The local papers follow the lead of Red Sports in running story about the fights after the Singapore vs Vietnam game last Sunday

For those of you who have been following the stories here on Red Sports, you would have been among the first to know about the fights that broke out after Singapore lost 0-1 to Vietnam in the second leg semi-final of the ASEAN Football Championship (AFF Suzuki Cup).

The loss sent defending champions Singapore tumbling out of the championship, erasing hopes of a third consecutive and fourth overall ASEAN championship title.

However, all the talk about what happened on the pitch soon got replaced online and offline by talk about fights, bloodied faces and a burning Vietnamese flag.

The day after the game, Monday, December 22nd, Red Sports was the first Singapore media to run the story about the fights and attacks on Vietnamese fans (Sore losers burn Vietnamese flag and beat up rival supporters after second leg semi-final loss to Vietnam).

Two other friends in his group also recounted their experiences online here at Red Sports (you can read their accounts here and here).

We also spoke to the Football Association of Singapore and their spokesperson, Eric Ong, told us earlier this week that “We (FAS) obviously don’t condone such behaviour and we believe that it is just a small minority.”

It was only on Wednesday, December 24th, that the mainstream media started doing the same story. Today ran a story on the fight in their December 24th issue while Straits Times ran a similar piece today, December 25th.

The challenge for any media, new or old, has always been about the authenticity of the story. When we first got the story here at Red Sports, we weren’t sure to what extent the story was an exaggeration. A little bit of checking around soon showed that the talk online was fairly credible (depending on where you got the story from, of course). Talking with the people who were attacked confirmed it.

In this day and age of numerous blogs, YouTube uploads and outright nonsense online, separating truth from fiction, facts from hyperbole, is a challenge.

One Singapore fan and one Vietnamese fan engage in a ‘dumb and dumber’ show for everyone to see. One dumb fan shows the other a vulgar sign and the other dumb one retaliates. (video still from YouTube)

Another dumb dumb Singaporean fan (in red) jumps into a crowd of Vietnamese supporters after having watched one too many kungfu movies, thinking he can take on a group that outnumbers him, oh, 20 to 1. (video still from YouTube)

Dumb dumb Singaporean fan is finally saved by a CISCO police officer (luminous yellow vest) who is alone and whose single finger jabs into the air is powerful enough to cause all the Vietnamese to disperse. The Vietnamese are nice enough to move on (some of them can be seen dragging their more belligerent friends to leave) and the CISCO police officer doesn’t have to show off the rest of his powers in his remaining nine fingers to fight them off. (video till from YouTube)

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