WOLF: L.A.-based soccer radio host's opinion raises Liverpool f...

Cohens commetns are inaccurate, offensive and deeply hurtful to those affected by Hillsborough.

Fans are in uproar over the fact that he continuously remarks that fans have 'shared responsibility' when government inquiries (who would normally like nothing more than to blame fans) have said this is not the case.

In the UK the media have finally opened their eyes and are starting to report on the truths of that horrendous day. It seems as if some low level shock-jock in the US has seen a window to get some publicity by going against the facts and hiding behind free speech.

Free speech should be maintained. However, people should use common sense before using public airways to spread lies that will cause distress and upset.

American soccer fans are currently suffering through bi-partisan reporting and despicable opinions from a now-Chelsea, ex-Arsenal nomark who has hurt a LOT of people with his comments and is trying to save face by deflecting the issue rather than presenting his evidence or apologising.

What an incredibly balanced article.

Did Cohen write this himself?

"I've seen the Taliban less defensive," Cohen said. "If this was being done in Afghanistan or Pakistan, we'd call these people terrorists. A lot of them are little cowards hiding behind their computers."

I'm sorry but comparing any sports fan to a terrorist is frankly ridiculous. Maybe if you were out there fighting in Afghanistan, or were close to people who were, you would be a little less naive.

The truth is Hillsborough was a tragedy brought about by poor policing, what Steven Cohen has said is not only an insult to those who were there or have lost loved ones, it is also an insult to the intelligence of the 'American Soccer Fans'.
I would hope that any true sports fan or journalist would be able to see the facts, compare it to what Steven Cohen claims and then see his comments for the lies that they are.

I have asked Steven twice for him to simply apologize to the families of the 96 and then never mention Hillsborough ever again. A simple request.

What did i get in response you ask(?), a hysterical almost child like email ranting and raving claiming i was responsible for all manner of things. None of which were true, but when have facts ever stopped Steven Cohen.

Strange that he forgets to ‘mention’ the two previous times he in my opinion spat on the graves of dead Liverpool fans, dead soccerl fans that included a 10 year old child.

“On December 5th 2006 on the Fox Football Fone-in television show, Mr Cohen made these remarks:

" Liverpool supporters are directly responsible for causing the two worst disasters in English football history, Heysel and Hillsborough". That "there is a disgusting side of Liverpools history that he would be happy to talk about."

He was also quoted on his Sirius radio show of making the comment; " They have five stars on their shirts but should have 39 coffins."

If this is the quality of soccer radio out there, then I’d rather go without. Let us Americans cover American (and world) soccer and not some Englishman whose show wouldn’t last two minutes in the UK. Not because he’d get lynched-purely because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

The two worst disasters in English soccer are iirc The Bradford Fire (56 died RIP) and the Hillsborough Disaster (96 died RIP) but then how would he know, as the article says he was in the USA since 1982 and therefore wasn’t even in the UK at the time.

I have asked Steven twice for him to simply apologize to the families of the 96 and then never mention Hillsborough ever again. A simple request.

What did i get in response you ask(?), a hysterical almost child like email ranting and raving claiming i was responsible for all manner of things. None of which were true, but when have facts ever stopped Steven Cohen.

Strange that he forgets to mention the two previous times he in my opinion spat on the graves of dead Liverpool fans, dead soccer fans that included a 10 year old child.

On December 5th 2006 on the Fox Football Fone-in television show, Mr Cohen made these remarks:

" Liverpool supporters are directly responsible for causing the two worst disasters in English football history, Heysel and Hillsborough". That "there is a disgusting side of Liverpools history that he would be happy to talk about."

He was also quoted on his Sirius radio show of making the comment; " They have five stars on their shirts but should have 39 coffins."

If this is the quality of soccer radio out there, then I would rather go without. Let us Americans cover American (and world) soccer and not some Englishman whose show wouldn't last two minutes in the UK. Not because he would get lynched-purely because he does not know what he is talking about.

The two worst disasters in English soccer are iirc The Bradford Fire (56 died RIP) and the Hillsborough Disaster (96 died RIP) but then how would he know, as the article says he was in the USA since 1982 and therefore was not even in the UK at the time.

Comment repeated as the previous version didn't seem to like punctuation or speech marks.

Interesting that key sponsors, tv networks and respected guest journalists are turning their backs on him - maybe they see him for what he is. He's an ill educated bully with a microphone and an outlet.

It's clear that for a brit with an assumed knowledge of the football (soccer) world he doesn't understand the culture and doesn't have much historical knowledge re: Hillsborough, and Heysel for that matter, and has been given ample opportunity to educate himself and apologize... would a holocaust denier, an outright racist or a sexist be afforded as much publicity? No most would want him off the air, Cohen is no exception.

I'm very surprised to see the Daily News so naively allowing Mr Cohen publish these self-indulgent fantasies of persecution and importance. If the radio show is a casualty, the only real sufferer will be Mr Cohen himself, the rest of us will do fine without his almost obscene nonsense.

That’s an interesting Headline on this article.

Twice in the past Mr Cohen has made known his views on Hillsborough and then retracted them with an apology. This time there is no apology. So I guess the past two times the apologies were meaningless.

This isn’t about Mr Cohen opinions. He is perfectly entitled to his opinions and having such strong opinions can be very good for his show. I don’t think anyone has problems with him there.

The problem is that his accusations about Hillsborough aren’t opinions – they are lies. The facts speak for themselves but Mr Cohen refuses to believe the facts – or even discuss them. Once his speech counters fact then it is no longer an opinion – it is a lie. Any right minded person would and should challenge Mr Cohen. That’s what Liverpool fans have done in the past and that’s what we are doing again.

Mr Cohen maintains that 6,000 to 8,000 ticketless Liverpool fans caused the deaths of 96 people at Hillsborough. That is a lie. Anything else that has happened in this debacle has that core lie of Mr Cohen at its core.

The fact that he refused to allow discussion of Hillsborough on his show – or even on the message boards that are associated with it speaks volumes about his opinion of free speech. As far as he is concerned it only applies to him.
The fact that he has already apologized twice in the past for similar comments shows him to be nothing short of morally bankrupt.

Liverpool fans have contacted Mr Cohens sponsors in the hope that they will show more moral backbone that he has. The fact that several of them have withdrawn their sponsorship after his comments speaks for itself as does the non appearance of several Guests including Mr Steve Nicol.
Facts speak for themselves – and there are few in this article. Perhaps a little more research and neutrality in producing this article and a little less sticking up for the words of a morally bankrupt man would have produced something of value.

I think Steven's comments speak for themselves.

A minority of idiots threaten him and he uses this as ammunition to attack the majority of peacful protesters by calling them terrorists. All this while his former comrades in the US military are being killed by REAL terrorists. This is the kind of cheap person he is. Using real tragedy, real deaths to score points.

He also states that because Liverpool fans were involved at both Heysel and Hillsborough, and that this can be no coincidence. In one sense he's right. Back in the 1980's, Liverpool were one of the most successful soccer clubs in the world. They were therefore involved in a disproportionate number of major soccer matches. Other than that, he's dead wrong and needs the term "logical fallacy" explained to him. Simply because one set of Liverpool fans were responsible for manslaughter in 1985, it does not therefore follow that a different set of Liverpool fans were responsible for police incompetence in 1989.

The facts of what happened at Hillsborough have been extensively examined by an independant judicial inquiry (The Taylor Report), but Steven dismisses this even though he openly admits that he hasn't read the report.

Your readership should also know that Steven has a long track record of being openly contemptuous of the 800,000 people of Liverpool, UK. It is for this reason that we strongly suspect that his opinions are driven by malice.

American's are a fair minded people and I believe they are smart enough to know that it is unacceptable to abuse your 1st ammendment rights by spreading deliberately hurtful and damaging lies.

While I would never think of sending a death threat to anyone (especially for a remark about a football club), this guy should have known what he was up for! I am a loyal Liverpool supporter, but I come from the US. I suppose if I were one of the family members that lost a loved-one in this tragedy, I would be most angered by his comments. Obviously people are split in their feelings for who is actually to blame for Hillsborough. But let me remind those who are quick to blame LFC - at just about every sporting event around the world there will be people drinking. Event staff as well as police combine to maintain peace and order. The Chief Superintendent at the scene (literally) opened the door that allowed this to happen. At first he said the LFC supporters had forced it open, only to later admit that he lied about it. I believe there were other inquests regarding police action, all of which ended with them getting off for some silly reason or another! I can imagine there were LFC supporters who showed a similar lack of intelligence, but to brand them (as a whole) as the ones to blame is irresponsible...especially if you're the only broadcaster in America talking about it! In the end, the resulting Taylor Report helped in securing supporter safety via all-seater designs. A terrible tragedy. However, this guy shouldn't be getting death threats - so let's smarten up people!

"Liverpool brought the same number of fans as the year before (to Hillsborough) even though they were at the smaller end of the stadium this time."

Another example of Cohen getting things wrong (and that's putting the most charitable slant on it). Liverpool had the same end in both years. Maybe he should stop digging as he is showing himself up as a know-nothing idiot everytime he opens his mouth.

The innate tribalism of British Football has some unpleasant consequences, including hooliganism; but there is also the deeply regrettable tendency for some supporters to use genuine tragedies to rile and taunt others, whether that be Hillsborough, Heysel or the death of players at Munich. It is that tendency which Cohen is undeniably indulging in, as anyone familiar with the poisonous, quasi-racist abuse of any number of football fans forums or terrace songs will recognise in the charges he makes, and the terms in which he makes them. This is not so much about disagreeing with a differing opinion (although Cohen's opinions are so far removed from the known facts and available evidence to be deemed fantastical)as being disgusted at a wilful decision to cause even more grief to those who have already suffered a devastating loss as a means of naked self-promotion.
30,000 people turned up for the recent 20th Anniversary of Hillsborough becasue it is a wound that has not been healed, mainly because of the (increasingly acknowledged) evidence that justice has not yet been served for the 96 dead, their families and the many hundreds injured and psycholigically damaged that day, through a noxious combination of political, police and establishment cover-up to deflect blame away from the those truly responsible, despite the clear message of the incredibly thorough Taylor Report. The media were also culpable, not least in the infamous 'The Truth' article in 'The Sun', the first shot in a black propoganda exercise to point the finger at the victims rather than the guilty.
That an ill-informed (or wilfully ignorant) so-called journalist should continue to spout this malice, with a clear agenda to taunt and mock which is predicated on spurious 'tribalist' lines, is a cause for both shame and justified opprobrium. He does not deserve the sympathetic hearing this article gives him - although I condemn threats of violence against him, unreservedly -, and I trust the growing campaign to persuade his sponsors of his unsuitability and moral bankruptcy will go from strength to strength.
JFT96

As a Manchester United fan, I know it could just as easily have been us in that situation at Hillsborough, hemmed in to die through no fault of our own. Steve Cohen's refusal to face facts is one thing but his continual spreading of lies, his lunatic equation of football fans with terrorists, of Heysel with Hillsborough, is quite another.

It's time to get this malice-driven plastic WUM off the airwaves before he abuses his position any further.

If the radio show hosted by such a bigot as Cohen is ultimately lost to the American public then so be it. Land of the free needs to broadcast truth to the people not one persons lies and mistruths.

Steve Cohen's breathtakingly shallow knowledge of English football is only made more astounding by the fact that he has managed to make a career out of spreading his misinformed, and in this case fabricated take on the game.

You end your article with 'American soccer fans will suffer', but the worry of soccer fans in the UK is that this man's lies and bitter attacks about an event that he has clearly not researched at all, shows that he is not a journalist who deals in facts, but a moronic fool who deals in hate.

Anyone who can support Arsenal for 20+ years and then later proclaim to be 'Chelsea through and through' clearly has no understanding of English soccer whatsoever.

As a British citizen who lives and works in the USA, I must say I am totally stunned that The Daily News have allowed themselves to be used by Mr. Cohen to spread his lies and horrific un-truths.

Earlier today, Tim Vickery from the BBC, one of the most respected football (soccer) journalist's in the Americas' condemed his lies and gross over-serialization of the events of April 15th 1989.

As a British Military veteran, who saw action in Afghanistan and a life long Liverpool FC fan I feel utterly sickened at being labelled a 'terroroist' by someone who has used horrific lies and spread nasty rumours about the deaths of 96 innocent men, women and children.

Dear Sir,

Cohen is a heartless opportunist who is using the deaths of ninety six innocent people to further his career. How, in any serious sense, can Liverpool supporters taking issue with somebody who has repeatedly lied (and yes, they are lies as the real facts are freely avaliable for anybody to view with a click of a mouse) be comparable with The Taliban?! It's an insane viewpoint and is absolutely laughable.

If Cohen is genuine in his beliefs on this matter, then he is obviously a person of base and unintelligent impulses who has exploded into a sense of hysteria because his non-sensical 'opinion' on the matter has been challenged.
Free speech should not be censored of course, but if for example, a journalist or politician says something so outlandish, irresponsible and upsetting to many people then it is also the duty of others to speak out against it.

I would also like to add a further innacuracy in this article, as Cohen states that Liverpool supporters "were at the smaller end of the stadium this time." In both the 1988 and 1989 semi-finals at Hillsborough involving Liverpool, Liverpool supporters were housed at the same Leppings Lane end of the stadium, with the same ticket allocation.

A quick Google or Yahoo search on the disaster will bring up countless articles which portray the actual events of what happened on that day, and not the fictitious ramblings of a deluded individual who has likely not even attended more than a handful of soccer matches in the UK in the last 25 years.

Regards,
CS

What a woeful article.

As an Arsenal fan I totally support Liverpool fans efforts 100% to remove Steven Cohen - I dont think any right minded football fan would stoop so low.

It wasnt in the pub he made his remarks, it was on air, infront of an audience that is only really learning about English football. I didnt know about his other remarks until I read some of the comments above.
That was 96 men, women and children.

Considering the time gap I really dont see a big difference between what the Sun printed 2 days later and what Cohen said 20 years later.

I hope he gets what he deserves.

As commented on by another poster, Tim Vickery, who is an extremely respected journalist, and himself a "correspondent" of World Soccer Daily had this to say on the matter,

Steven,
You complain of receiving death threats as a consequence of comments you made about the Hillsbrough disaster. Such threats are clearly to be condemned. But I really think - and advise you in the strongest possible terms - to reconsider your position on this issue.

The strength of feeling on this issue is incredibly high even after all these years, and it’s no wonder. You have to bear in mind the poison that the people of Liverpool have had to put up with on this issue - especially the campaign of the Sun newspaper at the time. The low point was reached with the accusation that these sub-human Liverpudlians had been urinating over other fans - when in fact this was an involuntary action of people who were being crushed to death. You have been placed in this camp - the camp of poisonous liars who seek to profit from populist bashing of the people of Liverpool.

I don’t believe you belong in this camp - indeed the spirit of this open letter is to try and win you over, since there is no issue in football more important than fan safety. As a football community we need to come together on this one, and I don’t believe that you are on the side of the villains.
But I do think you need to think about your opinion that Hillsbrough was a case of ‘shared responsibility.’ You will say that you have a right to an opinion - but that opinion has to be in line with the facts as they have been established.

As I understand it, your ’shared responsibility’ idea is based on the existence of ticketless fans. I expect there were some. Every week in the Maracana I see fans jumping over fences to try and get in without tickets. Does that make them killers?
Furthermore, it seems that ticketless fans were not a factor in the tragedy - because the problem was not so much one of over-capacity, but of bad distribution of fans. There was space available at the sides - but the way the fans entered forced too many through the middle.

But even if there were ticketless fans, this does not alter the principal fact. Responsibility goes with power. The more power you have, the more responsibility. The organisers of the event had the responsibility to ensure the safety of those who attended. That means - and this is absolutely basic - cordoning off the area, restricting access to control the flow of fans. The fact that this did not take place properly is to me a damning indictment of organisational incompetence.
To my mind the furthest that anyone can go on the ‘shared responsibility’ idea is as follows - English football, as a whole, had developed a culture whereby he most vital part of fan safety had been forgotten. With all the focus on violence what got overlooked was the fact that the mere presence of so many people in a restricted space is in itself a threat to their safety. But there were people at Hillsbrough being paid to deal with this problem. Their failure to carry out their duties with minimal competence seems to me to be the overwhelming cause of the tragedy

So I urge you to rethink your position on this vital issue. Don’t allow yourself to be associated with the lies of The Sun. Remember, we’re not only fighting battles of the past here - crowds automatically mean danger. While we are blaming fans we are giving the authorities an excuse for bad crowd control - and that can be fatal.
Tim Vickery

If the purpose of this newspaper article was to paint Mr. Cohen in a good light it has failed, instead showing that he is becoming increasingly desperate in his attempt to get himself out of the rather large hole he has dug.

The cretin obviously didn't get enough hugs as a kid.

He wouldn't have lasted 4 minutes in the British army, you can have him.