The vuvuzelas should be banned from the FIFA World Cup.

(intro deleted due to character limit.) I will go in the order that my opponet presented. My opponet begins by stating that the enjoyment of the games for people watching at home is curtailed by the vuvuzelas. I say that taking away the vuvuzelas curtails the enjoyment for the fans at the game. Vuvuzelas are part of the game atmosphere in South Africa. Fans at the games are the ones that make football what it is. These are the fans that FIFA want to enjoy the game the most. These are the fans who paid to be in that stadium, and they are the ones boosting the local economy which my opponet later states is the number one reason for a country to host the world cup. If they dish out the big money to go to the game, than they ought to be able to experience it the way they want to (within the legal limits of course). My opponet than goes onto make the point that the vuvuzelas are detrimental to any attempt of variety in entertainment. I will admit that I don't understand 100% of where he is going with this, but I will do my best to refute it. First off, I don't like the word "any". I'd rather see it "most" due to my point of subjectivity. You can still hear many chants during the game, though I can't find a video (I will keep looking and may post in round 3) I distinctly heard "God save the queen" chants in the England vs. Algeria game. There have been many other examples of chants in other games as well that can be made out, even while watching a television broadcast. Not only that, I consider the vuvuzelas as a part of the chants and gameday atmosphere in general. I continue to argue that it adds to the atmosphere. Fans of England express themselves with "God save the queen" chants, while South African fans express them selves with the sound of the vuvuzelas. My opponet then states that the vuvuzelas are a psychological and tonal disruption. I will respond by asking, "What chant isn't a psychological disruption?" Chants are designed to pscychologically disrupt the game either by harassing an opponet or lifting up the favorite team. I assume by "tonal disruption" he is referring to the disruptiing of chants and cheers. As I've already pointed out, I consider the vuvuzelas to be a chant and cheer of itself. My opponet says footballers and broadcasters have complained the vuvuzelas are distracting. I believe that to be non-unique as some cheers are also distracting. His statement that players have never complained about chanting is absurd. I found an article real quickly that supports my opinion. A coach in this article said that chants are so distracting to his team that they played a big role in leading him to quit his job. While this is not specifically football, the same logic can be applied. [1] This coach's opinion must be weighed above my opponet's since this coach has experinced chanting at a professional level. The chants that drove him to quitting were from fans of his own team. Imagine what a more hostile environment in a crucial world cup match would do. My opponent says that chants have never been called to be banned from games. I think the coach that got fired would want to put an end to the hostile chants althogether. I'm sure broadcasters complain when inappropiate chants are leaked out into their viewing audience. Footballers are constantly complaining about every little thing, therefore I can not put any stock into complaining about the vuvuzelas. Even if footballers complaining did mean something, if you look at all of the other ridiculous things thy complain about, I'm sure they complain about chanting as well. My opponet presented evidence stating that vuvuzelas reach a decibel level of 127 decibels. I wouldn't put too much stock in this test since it was not done in a world cup atmosphere. I would rather see a test comparing world cup crowd noises with no vuvuzelas to crowd noises with vuvuzelas. I bet then that the the numbers would not be as widespread than the numbers each of the two alone that my opponet reported. Since it would be hard to find such study, I will do my best to refute the facts he gave. Let's assume they are 100% accurate to a world cup atmosphere. I have a fact that states people would walk away with their hearing impaired if exposed to 100 decibels for two hours (about the length of a football game) [2]. My opponet said that chanting would be between 75-110 decibels. Since this is the world cup, we can assume that chanting is at the top of that range. This is still enough to do damage anyway, yet we don't hear about FIFA trying to ban loud cheering, even though it causes hearing damage as well. If they don't ban cheering, then they shouldn't ban vuvuzelas. Both will result in some type of hearing loss. This brings me to the point of personal responsibility. Sometimes, you just need to leave it to the fans if they want to attend. If damaging their hearing is important enough for them, then they should not attend the game. Adults can't be babysat all the time. People should be responsible for their own actions. If going to a soccer game will cause damage to their ears, than they are responsible for their damaged ears, not FIFA. The fans made their own choice to attend the game. I have already taken out my oppponets next argument by pointing out that chanting at the world cup level is also deafening. Therefore, my original point still stands. I also don't think that it matters if players have heard the sound before or not. It's still loud no matter how many times you hear it, therefore it does not give the players that have already heard it an unfair advantage. If players can find ways to communicate with the also deafening noise of a crowd screaming at the top of their lungs, than they can also find a way to communicate with vuvuzela noise. Even if teams that played in the confederations cup do have an advantage, I think that my opponet overstates it a bit. It is not nearly as big as what he makes it out to be. Also, if a team is good enough to qualify for the cup (I believe only 8 teams make it), than those eight teams deserve to have a very slight tatical advantage. They earned the small advantage, but I want to re-iterate that I don't think it makes that much of a difference if at all. I definitely agree with my opponet that hosting the tournament to boost a nation's economy is probably the main reason that countries host the cup, but showcasing their culture is also a more-minor reason. You could say that they showcase their culture to promote tourism to their country. They want people at home thinking, "Wow, what a cool place. I want to go there." It's only logical, but since my opponet wanted me to provide a source, here it is [3]. It talks about Brazil's objectives to hosting the 2014 World Cup and there are a few nuggets in there about promoting the culture. He then says that the World Cup belongs to the world, not Africa. Well, FIFA chose africa to host the cup knowing full well about the vuvuzelas. It is impossible to find ways to do things that everybody in the whole world agrees with. Let the Africans host the cup the way they know how. My opponet may think that it would not europe forcing their culture on Africa, but that is how it would be viewed by the majority. FIFA will be saying, "No you can't do that. Do it our way (FIFA is based in europe) ,the way it is supposed to be done." I realize that it is not only Europe that wants it gone, but my point still stands. The world will be telling Africa that they can't do things their way, they must do it the right way. As I said, there is no right or wrong way to celebrate. Thanks. [1] http://www.nytimes.com... [2] http://www.examiner.com... [3] http://www.breakingtravelnews.com...