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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