Opinion:Chiefs encourage tattling at Arrowhead

Like standing at sporting events? The Kansas City Chiefs would appreciate it if you didn’t when you show up at Arrowhead Stadium.

“Excessive standing and/or obstructing the view of other fans” is second only to the use of “foul, obscene, offensive or abusive language or actions” among banned behaviors on the Chiefs Fan Code of Conduct. (http://www.kcchiefs.com/arrowhead/policies/)

As if that weren’t bad enough, the Chiefs also are introducing a new system for reporting issues and problems. It will allow fans to text message confidential complaints before, during and after the game from any cell phone.

I never realized the fan experience at Arrowhead Stadium was so poor.

I had been under the impression that it was widely regarded as one of the NFL’s — and all of sports for that matter — toughest venues. And I also generally considered that to be a nod to Kansas City’s fans.

Certainly, from a safety standpoint, the Chiefs are onto something. With 80,000 folks — many a bit over-lubricated — in the same place, it’s hard for the stadium staff to monitor everything that occurs in the stands.

The system ought to help break up fights between drunken idiots faster or prevent drunken idiots from getting into fights in the first place, which is a good thing. I’d be all for that if there were some guarantee it would stop there, but we all know that won’t be the case.

I’ve been to many a Chiefs game and stood through almost every minute of every game. I sit down for commercials but that’s about it. Most of the time, it’s because I’m into the game, but a lot of times it just helps to be able to bounce around to ward off the cold.

I can’t say I’ve ever had people complain about my standing aside from a few Denver Broncos fans at the Thanksgiving Day game a few years back. Of course, because Broncos fans are substandard species, I didn’t feel even remotely bad for inconveniencing them. And that didn’t really happen; I just wanted to take a cheap shot at Broncos fans.

The policy is lunacy, though.

At high school football and basketball games, standing is commonplace among student sections. This behavior is learned early on. The more excited and intense fans are about a game, the more they stand, bounce around and scream. It’s a universal part of sports.

Watch a European soccer match or rugby sometime, nobody in the stands at those games sits. Heck, in England, nobody even sits down in the bars when a match is being played. If you want to sit, go to cricket or baseball games.

Football fans are meant to stand. I’ve heard the argument that people who want to sit paid for their ticket and deserve to enjoy the game. Well, people who want to stand also paid for their ticket and deserve to enjoy the game as well.

I can’t even stay seated watching Chiefs game at home on my couch, but I suggest if you want to sit on your thumbs through an NFL game that’s where you ought to be: on your couch at home.

The Chiefs have done some ignorant things through the years — drafting Todd Blackledge, hiring Greg Robinson, not firing Carl Peterson at the end of the 2003 season when the franchise’s playoff-victory drought reached a decade, benching Rich Gannon for the Jan. 4, 1998, Divisional playoff game against the Broncos ... I could go on.

If anything, the Chiefs should be encouraging more fans to stand.

Why not set up a text messaging system where I can complain that the people around me aren’t be big enough fans for my taste and receive a ticket upgrade?

Shame on the Chiefs for setting up a pointless, sophomoric, unenforceable and anti-American policy. Do they think Arrowhead Stadium is a third-grade classroom?

Win a Super Bowl before dictating how the diehards who attend your games show their support.

If someone’s cursing constantly, smoking in the seats, starting fights, wearing Broncos apparel or throwing things at other fans, that fan needs to go — and stay gone for good.

But standing? I wish it were joke.

Shame on anyone who uses the system to tattle on people for standing during a game. I hope, whether you wind up in heaven or hell, the only sports you’ll ever get to see again are Los Angeles Clippers games.