David Stern likes to act as though he has the best interests of the NBA in mind. He portrays himself as the keeper of order and decorum. Dress like a thug? Dress code. Fight? Suspension. Insult gay people? Minuscule fine and a slap on the wrist. Amar’e Stoudamire and Joakim Noah were fined $50,000 and Kobe Bryant $100,000 for their comments. When it comes to homophobia, the NBA is the equivalent of UEFA and FIFA. Thankfully a Swedish soccer team has shown real courage when it comes to dealing with this issue.

Swedish seventh division team Sörskogens IF fired their whole first team after they made homophobic comments to another team during a match.

During the match, players from Sörskogens were heard saying “you suck cock for 50 kronor”, “all of you have HIV”, and “we’re probably going to get infected”, among several other homophobic remarks, the local Mitt i Huddinge newspaper reported.

“It was a little unpleasant when we went into the dressing room after the game. One of our players was also threatened after things got a little heated on the pitch,” Snipers coach Christoffer Smitz told SR.

The team was fined 5,000 kronor ($755) by the Swedish Football Association and the team officials had to attend sensitivity training. However they went a step further and fired the whole first team.

“We had no choice but to suspend the entire team. That kind of language isn’t appropriate for football or anywhere else,” club chair Torp told Mitt i.

The Local also refers to the players being suspended. Maybe something is lost in translation but either way it’s a better move than most teams or professional league have made when dealing with issues of homophobia.

Ah the hell with it. David Stern, Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter could all learn something from this. FIFA and UEFA also have issues dealing with homophobia but racism gets more play due to the fact bias against gays is more accepted in sports worldwide. The usual penalties (if any) are monetary in amounts that would make any halfway-decent player or country association laugh.

The NBA is no better. The incidents involving Bryant, Stoudamire and Noah were opportunities for Stern and the NBA to make a statement but they took the easy way out by issuing fines that probably didn’t make any of them blink. Stern obviously isn’t concerned with player opinions so that’s not a reason for such a weak response.

LGBT organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign called the league out but curiously complimented Stern on fining the players. Really? Others praised the league for their actions too. This is setting the bar way too low. Strong actions by leagues and teams would set an example for players and fans to show certain behavior won’t be tolerated. Suspending a player for a certain period of time or even releasing him depending on the gravity of the offense would send a message. It’s impossible to change people’s opinions overnight but it needs to start somewhere. Teams also shouldn’t wait for leagues to take action. They should investigate and take action on their own within the scope of collective bargaining agreements and their respective leagues should back their moves.

The MLS took a much stronger stand by banning the Houston Dynamo’s Colin Smith for three games and fining him for insulting a ball boy with an anti-gay remark during a game. He was also forced to attend diversity and sensitivity training. Consider how much less MLS players make than players in other major professional leagues and the amount of games in the season. That is a much stronger statement. Could more be done? Absolutely but it’s more than most are doing right now.

It’s also refreshing to see individual players taking stands such as the NFL’s Brendan Ayanbedejo and Chris Kluwe in the face of opposition or mockery even within their own locker rooms. Racism is more of an issue in European sports than it is in the US but homophobia is something that still prevails on both sides of the Atlantic.

Enough has been made about Russia and Qatar (Katar or Quatar if you’re an American Twitter user) respectively winning the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. You can find critiques of either choice all over the internet. If you want some level-headed perspective, look to the English tabloids. At least government figures are taking the vote in stride.

Mayor Boris Johnson of London took away free hotel rooms reserved for FIFA during the 2012 Olympics after England was denied the chance to host the World Cup.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his team had been in line to benefit from the rooms during the two-week sporting extravaganza in the city.

However following the controversy of the 2018 World Cup vote, which saw England knocked out at the first-round stage with just two of a possible 22 votes from the FIFA executive committee, Johnson has decided that they should not receive the freebie.

He is yet to comment on the decision, which was taken after he met with Sebastian Coe, chairman of Olympic organising committee LOCOG – the body responsible for handing out the accommodation.

That’ll show FIFA. Now they’ll have to sleep under a bridge or shack up in a hostel with a bunch of construction workers and hippie tourists. Nothing like the image of Jack Warner sharing a shower and bunk with some hippie from Argentina who smells like patchouli and sings Manu Chao to himself in his sleep. Little does Pedro know that Jack does a mean rendition of “Dollar Wine”.

It’s going to be a long two weeks. Get your ass to Mars.

If you’re going to go down for something, the least you can do is go out in a blaze of glory like Maurice Clarrett. Former Vikings head coach Mike Tice scalped a bunch of tickets for what? A bucket of week-old Taco Bell shrimp and a pink slip. Let Robbie Earle show you how it’s done.

ITV World Cup pundit Robbie Earle was fired from his job for passing “substantial number of [World Cup] tickets” allocated to him to a “third party”. It turns out the third party was really a party. If 36 Dutch women aren’t a party, I don’t know what is.

Here’s where things get interesting. The women, all wearing orange dresses as the Dutch do, were part of a guerrilla marketing campaign by Bavaria Beer. The women showed up at the Netherlands-Denmark game and were promptly arrested by FIFA? Is that like getting arrested at Disney World?

The models were detained and questioned by FIFA and police who informed them that “ambush marketing” is illegal and punishable by six months in jail. One can only assume FIFA jail is having to service Sepp Blatter and Jack Warner in some Swiss ice palace in the Alps.

It should be noted that Bavaria Beer is not an official sponsor of the 2010 McDowell’s Meisterbrau RC Cola BP Sorny World Cup. The dresses didn’t have any logo on them but they come with every purchase of Bavaria.

Bavaria’s excellent response?

“Fifa doesn’t have a monopoly on the colour orange.”

Maybe so but shart brown is the official color of the World Cup.

Enough. We give you video of these brave, intrepid women unlike others who tease you with words and pictures.

It won’t be long before these martyrs take their place in the pantheon of South African heroes alongside Steve Biko, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.