And we were naïve enough to believe the Bloodgate scandal in rugby
union and the latest in cricket's match-fixing debacles were as bad
as it got as far as modern sport was concerned. If the latest outrage
which has torn apart the football world has proved anything, it is that
we can plumb down, we can reach even lower depths. Unimaginable
depths. Sickening depths. And in this humble commentator's opinion,
this can only have negative repercussions for the young kids just
starting out in the game.
How low can we go? Well, hell's a start.
And for some of our pampered stars, getting roasted by the devil's fire for all eternity wouldn't be a fit
punishment. This commentator would have to agree with Alan Brazil on Talk-sport, when he said that public
hanging was too good for them.
Football, hang your head in shame.
Money
Money is the root of all evil and so it has proved here. When we started paying our footballers
enough money so that they could launch their own rockets to the moon we made our pact with the
devil. When ten-a-penny players who made their living kicking a ball around a pitch started to
earn a million times the amount earned by our put-upon nurses and the heroes in whatever war-zone
our gracious leaders (or even America's leaders) have seen fit to send them to this week, we should
have cottoned on to the fact something was rotten in Denmark.
We should have realised the goddamn bacon had started to go off even as our spoiled little soccer boys brought that bacon home.
Right
I'm tired of being proved right all along. Footballers have been engaged in sex scandals which would
make JFK's cheeks redden in shame, they've dived, they've cheated, and worse, they've embarrassed
us in the World Cup. But now they've topped the lot.
Allegedly Ashley Cole (Cashley Cole as Alan Brazil dubbed him) was the first to try this new, hellish
way of cheating the authorities. But he was quickly followed by other players. Yaya Toure. Wayne
Rooney. Fernando Torres. Steven 'G' Gerrard. And the galling thing is, it was so easy for them to
cheat.
We pay these pampered pooches so much money it hardly mattered to them when they had to shell-out more than the GDP of most countries to make the new technology theirs.
Don't Really Understand
Most of us common people who do whatever common people do, will never understand the
technology behind this new Face Off equipment. But we can well understand why the players
involved felt confident enough to use it. They can hardly even be bothered to play the game now, and
haven't been answerable to the fans since I was in diapers.
So when opportunity knocked, and they were offered the chance to trade faces with the clones, so they didn't even have to set foot on the pitch, but could rather go out and spit-roast and drink ten gallons of lager and try and negotiate hostage situations, whilst still
earning their King's ransom per week it was a no brainer to them.
But our highly-indulged stars should think-on. Soon even better technology could be on the horizon.
Already, we're hearing about the boy in the small town of Newton Mills, who genetically engineered his
whole body in order that he could rise to the top, like cream. And he'll only be the first.
As Alan Brazil said, I only wish I was still playing now. Because there's a lot of money to earn.
And we deserve it far more than today's molly-coddled menaces.
