At a soccer match between Real Salt Lake and the Chinese national team last week, protesters waving the flags of Taiwan and Tibet were thrown out of the stadium after the Chinese manager threatened to halt the match.
The story is available at Deseret News.
One fan blogged about his own experience (with photos here):
The Chinese team was about to walk off the field if I did not put my flag down and I was asked nicely by Trino Martinez to put it down. Since I had my five-year-old daughter standing next to me (my wife was sitting in the next section over with my two-year-old daughter), and I did not want to get hauled off. So I put it down.
In about the 89th minute, Colin [Coker], another member of RCB started back with waving the Tibet flag…He was asked to stop and refused and was escorted out of the stadium.
Discussion on fan BBSs centers around what happens when free speech runs into the desire to conduct a “friendly” game free of disruptions DN reports:
Coker admits that he displayed the flag partly to distract and annoy the visiting team, but he said it was mostly a “form of expression about the plight of the people of Tibet.”
Both articles have links to video clips of the incident.