Suarez .................. utter disgrace?

[Sweep]

How is what I do at work even remotely related to how a professional footballer is treated?

No matter how hard you wish for it, football won't become a social utopia, where everyone behaves like responsible adults and bad behaviour is universally frowned upon. The money is too big.

Marlon King was a Wigan player when he was convicted of assaulting a woman. We had payed a lot of money for him. Dave Whelan summarily sacked him. We wrote off a sizeable sum of money. Once he was released from prison, he was almost immediately signed up by Coventry, before signing for Birmingham.
The moral? If you can improve a team, you can get away with almost anything. Except being gay obviously. That appears to be a career killer.

Of course what you do at work is related to how a professional footballer is treated - and how he should behave.
What you are saying is that because they are paid a lot of money - note, I didn't say earn a lot of money - that gives them the right to behave exactly how they like. It doesn't. Your work is entirely relavent, because it's you who pays the outrageous wages these players are on, with your season ticket and Sky subscription.
Dave Whelan is an honourable man who did the right thing. He is one of the only club owners that run a club in the right way and because of that he has taken, with all due respect, a small club to great heights, against all the odds. If other teams want to employ a criminal, so be it, but I don't remember King, Coventry or Birmingham setting the football world on fire. I do remember Wigan in the EPL and winning the FA Cup.
A guy who works for me is a mad keen Man U fan. Had a season ticket since he was a kid. Now he's married with kids of his own and a mortgage and struggles to get the £900 or so, to pay for his ticket. He vehemently argued that footballers were worth their money, so I asked him which star player that year had not performed. He said Ferdinand. I pointed out that his £900 that he struggled to scrape together didn't pay for an hour of Ferdinand's time when he was sleeping.
I am not wishing for football to become a social utopia. I am just suggesting that footballers have a duty -just like the rest of us -to behave in a decent manner. It is the owners /managers that need to get a grip, start to run their clubs responsibly and then you would see players like Suarez, Cole, Barton etc start to concentrate on playing football and the game would be better for it.

 

[Fish]

Dave Whelan is an honourable man who did the right thing. He is one of the only club owners that run a club in the right way and because of that he has taken, with all due respect, a small club to great heights, against all the odds. If other teams want to employ a criminal, so be it, but I don't remember King, Coventry or Birmingham setting the football world on fire. I do remember Wigan in the EPL and winning the FA Cup.

Can you expand on this and give an example of the conviction please?

 

[guest100718]

Can you expand on this and give an example of the conviction please?

Lee Hughes

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Can you expand on this and give an example of the conviction please?

I think he is talking about Marlon King

Lee Hughes is another

 

[Fish]

Cheers

 

[guest100718]

I think he is talking about Marlon King

Lee Hughes is another

King was convicted of Sexual assualt, amongst other things.

 

[Deleted member 18588]

Dave Whelan is an honourable man who did the right thing. He is one of the only club owners that run a club in the right way and because of that he has taken, with all due respect, a small club to great heights, against all the odds. If other teams want to employ a criminal, so be it, but I don't remember King, Coventry or Birmingham setting the football world on fire. I do remember Wigan in the EPL and winning the FA Cup.

So if Marlon King or Lee Hughes were, say, plumbers they also should not be employed on completion of their sentences. In which case they would rightly be entitled to benefits and would become a cost to you as a taxpayer.

Surely having been convicted and served a lawful sentence on release the offender should be re-integrated into society and allowed to earn a lawful income utilising whatever talents they have.

Or is it different for professional footballers? If so then there are strange standards being applied.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Interesting how Suarez gets soooo demonised for his actions when such as Norman Hunter, Kenny Burns and Graham Souness took a pretty laissez-faire attitude to how their opponents came out of any tackle. And as he has been mentioned here - you could add Roy Keane to that list - folks hero all. Suarez partakes of mostly childish, pathetic and occasionally rather nuts behaviour - but I haven't yet seen anyone he has transgressed against being carried off on a stretcher.

 

[Fish]

Interesting how Suarez gets soooo demonised for his actions when such as Norman Hunter, Kenny Burns and Graham Souness took a pretty laissez-faire attitude to how their opponents came out of any tackle. And as he has been mentioned here - you could add Roy Keane to that list - folks hero all. Suarez partakes of mostly childish, pathetic and occasionally rather nuts behaviour - but I haven't yet seen anyone he has transgressed against being carried off on a stretcher.

Don't single out Norman 'bite yer legs' Hunter, just say Dirty Leeds :smirk:

 

[Beezerk]

What I can't understand is why I didn't put Suarez in my Dream Team during the last transfer window

 

[Slime]

What I can't understand is why I didn't put Suarez in my Dream Team during the last transfer window

You probably assumed he'd be spending chunks of the season under suspension.

Slime.

 

[Beezerk]

You probably assumed he'd be spending chunks of the season under suspension.

Slime.

Probably, once bitten and all that.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

You probably assumed he'd be spending chunks of the season under suspension.

Slime.

Are you not bored of this now ?

 

[Slime]

Are you not bored of this now ?

No .............. not at all.
I thoroughly enjoy a good debate that's intermingled with some good humour and a fair ammount of banter.
I just chuckle at how seriously some people take it, and that's not aimed at you Phil.
I also enjoy a bit of devilment, which is partly why I started this thread not knowing it would get over 350 posts.
Why do you ask ................... are you bored yet?

Slime.

 

[Deleted member 18588]

Don't single out Norman 'bite yer legs' Hunter, just say Dirty Leeds :smirk:

Whereas the Chelsea team of that era were little angels. Harris, Webb, McCreadie etc;

 

[Deleted member 15344]

When it comes to slating Suarez - yeah I am bored of reading the posts . The incidents have been and gone and he has served his punishments and is currently letting his feet do the talking

If anything he has been the victim this season of some shocking tackles - so possibly your questions should have been - Suarez ..........victim ?

Now IF he has to break the rules again then it's quite possibly relevant to start calling him a disgrace ( sorry - asking if he is a disgrace ) as a football ( remember no one knows him personally so can't judge him a human being ) player but at the moment if his toeing the line and has done nothing wrong

 

[Slime]

When it comes to slating Suarez - yeah I am bored of reading the posts . The incidents have been and gone and he has served his punishments and is currently letting his feet do the talking

If anything he has been the victim this season of some shocking tackles - so possibly your questions should have been - Suarez ..........victim ?

Now IF he has to break the rules again then it's quite possibly relevant to start calling him a disgrace ( sorry - asking if he is a disgrace ) as a football ( remember no one knows him personally so can't judge him a human being ) player but at the moment if his toeing the line and has done nothing wrong

Unfortunately, and in my opinion quite wrongly, that goes with the territory. He's become a victim of his own ability.
The better you are the more targeted you become. He is playing sublime football this season and as a result attracts the worse tackles. For many it's the only way to stop him ....................... and then most fail!
It's always been that way. Some of the treatment Maradonna used to get was beyond belief. The same goes for Pele, Best, Ronaldo, Messi etc..
It's not right, it's just the way it is!

Slime.

 

[Sweep]

So if Marlon King or Lee Hughes were, say, plumbers they also should not be employed on completion of their sentences. In which case they would rightly be entitled to benefits and would become a cost to you as a taxpayer.

Surely having been convicted and served a lawful sentence on release the offender should be re-integrated into society and allowed to earn a lawful income utilising whatever talents they have.

Or is it different for professional footballers? If so then there are strange standards being applied.

I agree entirely. They shouldn't be treated any differently than anyone else. I was simply making the point that Dave Whelan had done the right thing and it is not his concern if another club employs the player he has just sacked upon release.
Footballers should not be treated any differently than anyone else and they should be expected to behave just like everyone else.

 

[bluewolf]

Footballers should not be treated any differently than anyone else and they should be expected to behave just like everyone else.

Whilst I admire (and fully agree) with your stance. It simply isn't going to happen. As long as someone is pumping billions per year into football, footballers will be able to get away with more than you or I would. Quite simply, there's much too much money in the game to expect any sort of social compliance*..

* It isn't just football either. Any team sport that is awash with money will eventually sink into its own turgid pit of excess....

** It isn't just Sport either. Check out the recent financial mess and ask how we got into such difficulty..