Fire Clear Section, Supporters Clubs Irate

BRIDGEVIEW, IL—The Chicago Fire have revoked the supporters group privileges of Sector Latino who sit in Section 101 in the Southwest end of Toyota Park due to the use of smoke bombs during last Saturday’s match against San Jose. The club has also cancelled tickets of any season ticket holder seated in Section 101 as well as single game tickets distributed for this Saturday’s match against New England and be refunded. 

The club in the e-mail claims that they served Sector Latino official notice that their privileges were revoked until August 1st because of this and final warning of a permanent revocation if further violations occur. The group has until Wednesday to appeal the ruling and then present their case in a hearing prior to the June 30th home match against NYCFC.

In response, the Independent Supporters Group organization (Section 8) released a statement claiming a “breach of trust” with the club and that the groups will not participate in activities that Section 101 has been prohibited from doing. Below is the full content of the letter:

The recent decision to issue a ticket cancellation to all ticket holders in section 101 is of great concern to the ISA. This community takes pride in our history as a club, and the supporters driven culture that this club was built upon. This culture is founded upon trust between the club and it’s supporters and this trust was breached by the Chicago Fire in their actions against all ticket holders in section 101.

While incidents of violence in supporters culture must be taken very seriously, this most recent incident was not linked to any incidents of violence and feels like a dramatic overreach by the club and only serves to erode the Fire’s most loyal base of supporters. In light of this action, Section 8 Chicago cannot, in good conscience, participate in any activities that 101 has been prohibited from doing. Tickets for the Harlem End will no longer be sold for the June 9th match against New England, and Section 8 Chicago will not be participating in organized support. Harlem End ticket holders can make their own decisions whether to attend the game or not, but the ISA will not provide the organized elements of support that the front office has taken for granted until this is resolved. Once again, we call upon MLS and the Fire front office to produce a list of infractions and punishments for supporters groups to establish the precedent for these actions.

We would also like to stress that our solidarity with section 101 in not contributing organized support to this game does not reflect our level of support for the players or the pride night events on June 9th. Section 8 Chicago is completely committed to our unwavering support of the LGBTQ+ community and anyone with a ticket to the game is still able to attend and support pride night. We will be looking into an appropriate date for Section 8 Chicago to be hosting our communities own pride night in the near future.

We attempted to contact Senior VP of Communications and Media Sean Dennison and Senior Vice President of Ticket Sales, Service, and Marketing Mike Ernst for comment, but have not received response to our e-mails as of 6:30pm CT on Friday.

Earlier on Twitter, former Fire player Diego Gutierrez tweeted his support to Sector Latino.

This is not the first time fans have clashed with the club. The most notable is a 2013 editorial penned by then Communications Director Dan Lobring denouncing fans for alleged attacks at ownership and front office personnel during a US Open Cup semifinal loss to DC United at home. There were further fan protests in 2015 at the Fire’s first home match after another Open Cup semifinal defeat at Philadelphia. Plus, there are the ongoing problems with Monterrey Security who run security at Toyota Park.

THOUGHTS:  Punishing a group as a whole for the actions of a few people is extremely harsh as any student in grade school or high school can attest to. I can attest from personal experience in both. What the Fire did here is extremely harsh. Smoke bombs and flares are clearly listed as items prohibited from being brought into Toyota Park, yet they have been seen in the main Supporters Group sections over the years at Toyota Park. We do not condone in the slightest fan violence or actions that disrupt play on the pitch such as when a “fan” went onto the pitch in the late stages of last Saturday’s match just as San Jose were attempting a set piece to equalize the match.

That said, fans in Section 101 are being unfairly tarred with the same brush and this tactic straight of some school’s playbook by the Fire is extreme and an overreach. It also creates, once again, a disconnect between the club and its supporters—many of whom do not believe the club is moving in the right direction. Much of the anger on social media has been directed at club president and general manager Nelson Rodriguez. Rodriguez is not the most popular figure at the Fire because some fans believe he talks down too much to the fans whenever he speaks and did not think much of his most recent media roundtable. He and members of the Fire front office must rectify this porous decision of a blanket ban of Section 101.

Instead of treating its supporters with contempt, the club should do much more to bridge the disconnect with them and work with them to enhance the experience at Toyota Park and be working to improve the product on and off the pitch. Actions like blanket banning only make fans wish Tom Ricketts would stage a hostile takeover of the Fire and/or wish the proposed USL team and stadium at Lincoln Yards come a lot sooner.