The vuvuzelas should be banned from the FIFA World Cup.

First of all, I'll rebut my opponent's arguments in the last round before summarising my case as a whole. === REBUTTAL === 1) The role of vuvuzelas in 'enjoyment of the game' The key part of my opponent's argument here comes when he says that: "taking away the vuvuzelas curtails the enjoyment for the fans at the game...they ought to be able to experience it the way they want to (within the legal limits of course)" Why must legal limits be the ultimate decider? Should not moral limits also play a part? How else are we to decide if a law is just, and abolish it if necessary, unless we are able to have social or moral guidelines outside of the law to decide what we should or should not do? I have already shown, and will continue to show, how vuvuzelas are distracting, damaging and unpleasant - given that FIFA is allowed to make rules on the World Cup in addition to the law (take the yellow/red card booking system for example), this should be all that is required in order to ban the vuvuzelas. My opponent also said that: "You can still hear many chants during the game...I distinctly heard "God save the queen" chants in the England vs. Algeria game." I heard those chants too. The reason we heard them was that all the English fans stopped blowing the vuvuzelas and started singing. If a large proportion of the stadium stops blowing the damned things, then of course we'll hear other things over them. The same thing happened when South African fans got shocked by their goalkeeper being given a red card against Uruguay with the subsequent penalty, and when France scored the goal against them today meaning they were far less likely to qualify to the next stages. But this is never a consistent break. For example: I'm now watching Nigeria vs. South Korea, and the vuvuzelas are drowning every other crowd sound out. The same is true of Greece vs. Argentina, and has been true for the vast majority of every other match thus far. The few welcome reliefs from the bee-hive does not mitigate the damage and annoyance caused by the vuvuzelas elsewhere. My opponent continues by arguing that: "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." This seems to be simply unbelievable. My opponent can 'continue to argue' that a sound which dampens every other sound in the vicinity somehow "adds" to the atmosphere, but the truth is that it simply does not. As a noise louder than standard chanting (as defended in the next section), it ensures that every other sound in the arena - including, if loud enough, the referee's whistle - is drowned out. That cannot add to the atmosphere; it ruins it. 2) Taking players' complaints seriously My opponent referred to Glen Sather quitting his job due to chants, and pointed to a New York Times article about this. [1] However, looking at the article itself, it is immediately clear that it was not the simple fact of the chants that caused the problem - it was the hostility of them, the fact that the chants were "Fire Sather!" My opponent actually implied this when he said that it was the "hostile chants" that Sather would probably want banned, not the existence of chants themselves. Of course certain chants will be annoying. I accepted this in the previous round when I said that: "Even when complaints about specific instances are made, they never result in calls for chanting in matches to be banned altogether." That point still stands, and my opponent has not yet come close to refuting it. He also argued that: "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." I am not sure whether this counts more as paranoia or unwarranted cynicism on my opponent's part. "All the other ridiculous things"; "constantly complaining about every little thing". Where is the evidence for this? Even if individual players are like this, of course this is not indicative of any widespread trend. We SHOULD put stock in complaints when they are shared by a clear and overwhelming majority of commenting footballers, coaches and broadcasters. Of course we should, especially as they are the ones on the frontline of the action and most affected by the vuvuzelas in the crowd. Why shouldn't we? 3) Loud vuvuzelas vs. loud cheering My opponent said that: "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 don't understand what he is supposed to mean by this. Surely a World Cup atmosphere, with thousands of people blowing at once, would actually make something louder? So maybe it's more than 127 decibels... "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." Not really. It depends on how loud the people in the crowd are to begin with. What evidence does my opponent have for the higher end of the scale? The study I gave [2] had the 110-end of the scale on rare moments during certain American football plays. Indeed, even the 110-end of the scale, in the study given, "the visiting team's quarterback is limited to communications ranges of less than 2 feet, even while shouting." So even 110 decibels of cheering can be distracting in the way that vuvuzelas are. So clearly standard cheering - given that they don't face this same problem regularly - must be far quieter than this. And below the 100-decibel level that my opponent gives as damaging. "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." Not so. The usual "deafening noise of a crowd screaming", as shown through study shown in [2], is far less than actually deafening. The problems only really arise at World Cup level with the vuvuzelas. 4) Culture, etc. My opponent said that: "[I] may think that it would not europe forcing their culture on Africa, but that is how it would be viewed by the majority" Every poll I have seen (as for example at http://www.banvuvuzela.com...) has shown that a majority of people actually want vuvuzelas banned. And this doesn't even include people who reject the notion that banning a plastic trumpet from football matches is really an affront to African culture. At best, it is rejecting a singular part of FOOTBALL culture, and that is different from African culture as a whole. It really isn't plausible that people could look objectively on a vuvuzela ban and say: "Well, I was going to go to South Africa and enjoy their culture. But now it turns out that I can't blow a plastic horn at football events, I won't bother going." Even if/where culture is a part of a World Cup bid, something as miniscule as vuvuzelas aren't that. Stuff like reforming the world's opinion post-apartheid would be more of a cultural imperative, if South Africa really were interested in that - not vuvuzelas. === SUMMARY === Vuvuzelas are not only incredibly annoying, when widely played they serve to drown out other entertainment within the crowd and make it as good as impossible for players and coaches to communicate with each other during the game. This being different from standard chanting, and plastic horns not being a big part of South African culture as a whole, there is no good reason for FIFA to keep the vuvuzelas, and very good reason to ban them. Vote PRO. Sources: [1] http://www.nytimes.com... [2] http://www.acoustics.org...