Opinions on the recent behavior of certain footballers

One of the many reasons I don't follow football. There's no sport in it anymore other than what's played in parks on sundays up and down the country. As soon as someone gets paid proper money to play it they turn it complete planks either on their own doing or via peer pressure. if I want to watch bad acting and casual racism then a night in with Channel 4 will sort me out but football is just diabolical. It needs FDISKing and starting from scratch, making sure the boot record is killed for good measure.

That is a brilliant answer FDISK the whole of FIFA

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Originally Posted by mattx

Whats football ?

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Football is a sport where massively over paid players chase a ball for 90 minutes with the pretence that both sides want to win. Some times it is entertaining, other times it is like watching paint dry. The best form of the sport is watching grass roots clubs (kids clubs and adult clubs) who really want to work together as a team, and do this in their spare time and pay to play (for kits, transport etc) and the best hope of sponsorship they have is a small local business who will chip in to help buy the kits.

Also the big level footballers seem to be fantastic actors or have the health regeneration abilities of Wolverine! For example, a player gets tackled and dives to the floor, proceeds to roll around for 5 minutes calling for medical help as if they have broken their legs but then as if by sheer magic when the decision goes against them, they get straight back up!

I find the sport a waste of time at the big levels and national pride is misplaced in the teams that are there, as there are undoubtedly better players at the grass roots as they are the players who get tackled badly and still carry on unless the whistle has been blown rather than crying wolf. I personally think people should watch a real sport such as rugby or UFC.

Hope that helps @mattx and @GREED

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Originally Posted by nephilim

Football is a sport where massively over paid players chase a ball for 90 minutes with the pretence that both sides want to win. Some times it is entertaining, other times it is like watching paint dry. The best form of the sport is watching grass roots clubs (kids clubs and adult clubs) who really want to work together as a team, and do this in their spare time and pay to play (for kits, transport etc) and the best hope of sponsorship they have is a small local business who will chip in to help buy the kits.

Also the big level footballers seem to be fantastic actors or have the health regeneration abilities of Wolverine! For example, a player gets tackled and dives to the floor, proceeds to roll around for 5 minutes calling for medical help as if they have broken their legs but then as if by sheer magic when the decision goes against them, they get straight back up!

I find the sport a waste of time at the big levels and national pride is misplaced in the teams that are there, as there are undoubtedly better players at the grass roots as they are the players who get tackled badly and still carry on unless the whistle has been blown rather than crying wolf. I personally think people should watch a real sport such as rugby or UFC.

Hope that helps @mattx and @GREED

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Which is why I'm off to Rome in 2 weeks......

Footballer A and Footballer B have an ongoing spat where insults get thrown about on both sides. One uses personal insults and the other uses language that many others find racially abusive (remembering that racial abuse is a subjective issue and is based on how it made the subject or others feel rather than the intent on behalf of the originator).

In law there are mitigating factors and these do seem to have been ignored in this particular case, but they are only mitigating factors, not excuses or a reason why things have happens or could be allowed to happen again in the future.

As a fan of Liverpool, Everton and Tranmere, it has been disappointing to read some of the press from back home and talking with friends who cannot see that, in spite of the other things going on with this case, that they should have been educating players such as Suarez, as it appears that this is language he has also used in the training ground in a friendly and descriptive manner. From talking with other friends, who have come from Kenya and Sudan, they talk about different skin tones and hair colours in a descriptive manner too, but it can be taken as racially offensive by others ... even when it is not done so. They have been helped by friends to moderate their language and understand the history about why some folk get offended.

For me, a problem with this case is that players where being insulting to one another ... no matter whether the language used was racially abusive or not. The manner that this aspect was addressed was disappointing. The automatic vitriol against the other team is not something that is pleasant in any sport ... and the ideal that players of sports should do what they can to earn the respect of each other, professionally and personally, as well as the respect of the fans ... that seems to be gone from so many sports.

In football, I think we should ditch post-match press conferences ... the need of the public for a kiss'n'tell style response from players and managers in the immediate seconds disappoints me. I think we should drop one of the Champions League places and award it to the team with the best disciplinary across all leagues. I think that there should be a ban on the number of players who can approach the ref ... there is a reason why there is a Captain ... it is *his* job to liaise between the team and the ref. Teams should fine players who dive rather than see if they get away with it.

There is nothing wrong with football being a physical game ... but it should be tempered with some sense of respect for each other.

Totally agree Tony. Some things you mention are already in place (fair play league, although this is Europa league not cl) and there is the rule about the offending player and captain only approaching the ref.

The whole issue of respect amazes me, you look at Rugby and there is total respect for the most part to fans, officials and other teams. And in fact in nearly every other sport...

The expression is football - gentlemans game played by hooligans, rugby - hooligans game played by gentlemen

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Originally Posted by kevbaz

Issue for us LFC fans in general was he was found guilty on an assumption , they even used the phrase "Mr Evra's version of event is PROBABLY what happend"

The same Mr Evra that was found guilty and banned for 6 matches because of false racial alegations (chelsea groundsman) and the same Mr Evra who led the French national squad revolt at the last world cup.

There was ZERO evidence and they trusted the word of a known and convicted liar. The panel was manned by two close friends of Fergie.. go figure. hence the outburst of injustice and the backing to the hilt of the player.

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the report was very comprehensive by all accounts, and with anything where it's mostly one person's word against another, it was concluded that evra was by far the more reliable witness. what went on with evra previously is irrelevant.

the worst thing about this whole incident is how liverpool [in particular the manager] keep digging themselves a hole.
Given liverpool are headed by a group with ample resources and experience in running a big sporting club, i'm amazed dalglish is still allowed in front of a microphone without a club solicitor or PR guy sitting next to him. Evidence this...

Kenny Dalglish says nothing wrong with booing Patrice Evra | Mail Online

where he describes the unseemly booing of patrice evra as 'banter'. keep digging kenny.

contrast with the way ferguson has responded to the incident from the beginning, supporting his player and leaving it up to the player to decide what course of action to take without resorting to knee-jerk reactions over the reliability of an opposing teams' player. Ferguson and dalglish are of a similar generation and i would guess backgrounds, but only one has shown that he's a modern day football manager both in team building and on issues that spill out into the media.

Ferguson has nearly 30 years at the same top level club, and from that, a massive wealth of experience on how to deal with multiple issues. Hell he and Wenger (2nd longest serving manager in the premiership) have practically written the book on how to deal with issues.

I think sticking with 1 club for such periods of time have given them the insight as to how to deal with press properly without dragging their club down, and how to deal with the players. When you hope from club to club every 3 -5 years, it doesn't help as you need to sort out issues in different ways in different clubs depending on what the directors say.

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Originally Posted by nephilim

Ferguson has nearly 30 years at the same top level club, and from that, a massive wealth of experience on how to deal with multiple issues. Hell he and Wenger (2nd longest serving manager in the premiership) have practically written the book on how to deal with issues.

I think sticking with 1 club for such periods of time have given them the insight as to how to deal with press properly without dragging their club down, and how to deal with the players. When you hope from club to club every 3 -5 years, it doesn't help as you need to sort out issues in different ways in different clubs depending on what the directors say.

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Couldn't agree more, he was careful with the whole Rooney episode (possible leaving, personal life issues, his on pitch antics). Regardless of how people see racism what Liverpool did was coming across as supporting racism.

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Originally Posted by GREED

Because it is acceptable in his country only digs deeper, that surely says something about Uruguay...

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Originally Posted by GrumbleDook

(remembering that racial abuse is a subjective issue and is based on how it made the subject or others feel rather than the intent on behalf of the originator).

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Different countrys can have massive differences on stuff like this & similar issues. Women in this country haven't even been able to vote for very long, but at some point we thought that is was stupid for them to do so!

Agree @JoeBloggs

However the earlier point that if you are going to play or work in a country you need to respect their laws and society. Look at what happened to the people in Dubai, caught being 'friendly' in public and were locked up for what was going to be years. There was no real outcry over that (mostly because we wish we would lock them up over here!), but the excuse from his camp that 'it is acceptable in my country' is terrible! I am sure the countries foreign office would not be saying the same thing!

Yeah I agree. Like I said, he should be punished for his ignorance! I just wouldn't so easy brand him as a racist, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. :)

How can match bans be considered punishment when you're earning £100k a week(or more).

Punish the entire club, it'd soon sort it out!*

*non-football watcher

Have some rep @tommej I agree, but you would need to do it in such a way that it dents the pocket in a big way. The trouble is, you need to do it also in a way that it doesn't affect the teammates that are innocent.

So perhaps a 10 match ban with all pay suspended for that period (with no back pay) also would be a good penalty.