I’m fast coming to the conclusion that being a footballer must be a rubbish job. It’s no fun anymore. You go out, leg it around for 90 minutes and invariably end up being booed, belittled or banned.
Emmanuel Adebayor should be applauded, not castigated, for running half the length of the pitch, sliding on his knees and giving the Arsenal fans a mean stare (above, from The Guardian) as a way of ramming the incessant, racist abuse they had taunted him with from the very first whistle.
Instead, he finds himself facing the sort of disciplinary action once reserved for common assault.
When Chris Morgan almost took Iain Hume’s head off with a shameful elbow last year, the FA’s response was the referee had seen it, booked Morgan, and therefore it could not override his decision. This was despite Hume being left in hospital with a fractured skull.
Fast forward 10 months, and we have the same FA charging Adebayor with improper conduct and threatening to ban him for a goal celebration.
So let’s get this straight. In the FA’s book, a celebratory glare is worse than a life-threatening elbow.
Or indded a badge kiss. Gary Neville, who bears the brunt of the Liverpool fans’ hatred, was fined £5,000 in 2006 for planting a smacker on his Manchester United badge after a late winner.
I’m sick of whingeing supporters thinking that by paying their money they are given carte blanche to verbally abuse players in every conceivable fashion.
Racist and vulgar language, paedophile chants, insulting their families; it’s an old cliche but it’s the kind of thing you’d be arrested for if you did it anywhere else outside a football ground. Yet the minute they get some back they accuse the player of incitement.
So the players have to simply sit there and take it. The only way they can respond is by doing what they should be doing anyway, namely going a bit mental when celebrating a goal.
But they can’t even do that these days.
It’s about time supporters learned that if you give it you should take it. If you want to chant that kind of stuff, don’t go whingeing when the player rams it right down your throat when the ball hits the back of the net.
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4 comments:
Completely and utterly wrong.
One Daily Mail hack who wasn't at the game, invents the story that Arsenal fans were singing "The Elephant Song" at Adebayor and it spreads like wildfire.
No regard for the truth, which was that Arsenal fans were singing the Arshavin version "He's 5ft 4" f*ck Adebayor and the City fans were singing the version about Ade's packet (and I don't mean his wallet).
Neither fans sang the racist version unlike the idiots at virtually every ground we visited last season.
What Ade did was incite trouble, he had lost the plot, he'll get punished and deservedly so.
I don't excuse or condone racist chants for one second, but in this instance your facts and thus the premise upon which you write this article, are completely 100% wrong.
Maybe you want to put your Wenger glasses down for a moment. I shall defend myself to the hilt, because the Arsenal fans I spoke to at the game gave me the basis of what I wrote, including the fact that the song was sung. Someone who went on the train from London that morning also tells how the carriage he was in was packed with Arsenal fans pre-rehearsing the treatment they were about to shower Adebayor with. I'm not saying he's not an idiot - he is - but supporters who dish out stick shouldn't complain when their target gives them the proverbial two fingers. Or even worse, a nasty look. And as for the FA, as I said, if it thinks an elbow is more dangerous than a knee-slide, we're all in trouble.
Next week - Fabregas spits like a Llama, pt 2! (just kidding)
Wenger glasses ho ho ho that's a good one.
Read the Arsenal blogs, there was a half hearted attempt to sing that song which ran out of steam after about 3 minutes.
Accusing Arsenal fans of racism in this instance is nonsense. It's just playing the race card to excuse Adebayors inflammatory actions.
Anybody who sang that song is an idiot. Ade got lots of stick but it was in the main aimed at his money grabbing, beyonce dating, strolling around after his pay rise like he owned the place, ways. Not the colour of his skin.
You presented the "facts" as though he was subjected to a torrent of racist abuse. He wasn't.
As for the mean look, that's a convenient way of downplaying the stupidity of running the entire length of the pitch to deliver his riposte. And potentially causing many people to get hurt.
The act of a knee slide or a mean look is of course not as dangerous as an elbow. But effectively, he'll be punished for the potential repercussions of the act, not the act itself.
Both Toure and Bellamy(!) pulled Ade away and apologised to the Arsenal fans because they recognised he'd crossed the line.
For the record, the elbow last season should have been punished with both a long ban and probably a jail sentence, but citing that as justification for letting Ade off is nonsensical.
Ban people for deliberate elbows, ban them for inciting crowd violence, and ban any thugs who think racism is acceptable.
It's not hard is it?
Apparently, if you're the FA, it is!
The elbow aside, there's no doubt Adebayor was stupid in his running to the crowd.
The point is, if a crowd is happy to abuse a player in whatever way or circumstance they see fit, then they give up their right to whinge and moan when the player gives some back.
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