Ethics in public life JOHN MULHOLLAND
Bring on the sin bin O
our college’s all-weather football pitch – on which the England team later practised – was for- mally opened by Sir Bobby
Charlton and on that occasion I had the pleasant task of publicly thanking him. In doing so, I said that, in addition to his record- breaking, goal-scoring feats for club and country, Sir Bobby had been a role model of sportsmanship for young people and “a player who would rather lose a match playing fairly than win it by cheating”. How many premiership players could that be said of today? Sadly, the evidence strongly indicates it to be very few. That evidence can be constantly seen in press photographs, on television and from what used to be called the terraces. Look at the pictures that accom- pany press reports of matches and, in most of them nowadays, you will see deliberate fouls being committed. Last May, a photo- graph in The Times showed Barcelona’s mercurial Lionel Messi trying to run clear of two Manchester United players, each hold- ing one of his arms. When corners are taken, as television coverage shows, there is so much holding, pushing and grappling that referees could award a penalty or free kick on virtually every occasion.
VISITING ROME?
JOIN US FOR MASS AT THE JESUIT ORATORY OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER “DEL CARAVITA”
EVERY SUNDAY AT 11.00AM
FOLLOWED BY AN APERITIVO. ALL ARE WELCOME.
www.caravita.org Via Caravita 7, 00186, Rome, Italy.
Brentwood Religious Education Service BRES Lecture
“The Condition of England Question: What
Catholics might make of the events of August 2011” 16th November 2011, 7.30pm Speaker: Lord Alton of Liverpool Cost: £5 waged, £3 unwaged.
Ingrave Road, Brentwood, Essex CM15 8AT Telephone: 01277 265285
8 | THE TABLET | 12 November 2011 Cathedral House Conference Centre,
During last year’s World Cup competition in South Africa, England’s players showed a woeful lack of skill but the cameras revealed cameo performances by Wayne Rooney and Ashley Cole in the dark art of undetected shirt pulling. And, as the whole world knows, Ireland were denied a place in those finals by Thierry Henry’s deft but shameful use of the hand – seen by everyone except the ref- eree – a piece of cheating for which he afterwards refused to apologise. The lamentable truth is that cheating is now so commonplace as to be accepted by players, managers and those TV pundits who, significantly, are themselves ex-players. The only behaviour they routinely condemn is violent conduct and, surprisingly, diving. I say surprisingly since diving, though clearly shameful, is surely no worse than shirt pulling, which is the behaviour of the foot- balling sneak thief and about which little or no complaint is ever made. Less common, but surely most revealing of all, are those collective acts of cheating put into effect in matches having been rehearsed on training grounds. They have been particularly evident in European Champions League matches when, signifi- cantly, the financial stakes for clubs are greatest. The stratagem occurs at dead-ball situations and involves two or three players, one of whom takes the kick while another blocks off or barges aside an opponent to create a goal-scoring opportunity. As The Times reported, in one such European match Liverpool beat Chelsea, and in another Chelsea beat Barcelona by these methods.
Fair play is an ideal that Britain’s national sport of football seems to have lost, particularly in the Premier League. Its restoration is vital if children are to learn that what happens on the pitch is as much a moral issue as any other activity in life
In a notorious incident of referee intimidation, Manchester United’s Jaap Stam (hidden), Nicky Butt, David Beckham and Roy Keane surround referee Andy D’Urso (left) after he had awarded a penalty against them in a match against Middlesbrough in 2000. Photo: EMPICS Sport
Nothing shows more starkly the preference for winning by cheating over losing by playing fairly. Cheating is not, however, the only thing that shows there is something rotten in the state of top-flight football. Another is the lack of respect for referees constantly shown by players and managers. The most notorious example in recent years, reproduced repeat- edly in press photographs, was that of Roy Keane leading a posse of Manchester United players to intimidate a referee who had the temerity to award a penalty to a visiting side at Old Trafford. More mundane, but just as revealing, is
the way in which, throughout games, players react to free kicks, correctly awarded against them, with a contemptuous gesture or mouthful of abuse towards the referee, behav- iour almost always unpunished. In this they are following the example of their managers, who often condemn referees’ decisions to the media – only for replays then to reveal the referee as right and the know-all manager as wrong. All of this contrasts starkly with what hap-
pens in other sports. In rugby, both league and union, referees are respected by players and coaches, and their decisions accepted without protest. In one televised match, when a player demurred for a moment after being sin-binned, the referee could be heard to say, “Off you go lad, this isn’t football”! In other professional sports, such as tennis or golf, cheating is inconceivable. Perhaps football should no longer be called a sport but rather an entertainment.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40