Following the recent arrest of Australian Rules footballer Brendan Fevola for the umpteenth time, the issue of unruly sports stars is in the news again.
In recent times some social commentators have taken the view that the sports clubs should take more responsibility in the social welfare of their athletes, and not spit them out when they're no longer useful or have strayed in the wrong direction.
Well I have to disagree with this viewpoint to some extent, (in this case) these football clubs are employing highly paid professionals to perform a task, with the historic trade off being the clubs excusing and/or covering up their crimes (moral and perhaps occasionally illegal?). Top level football clubs are part of an industry - a business that makes money for highly paid players and administrators, and as the blindly parochial are slowly finding out, there's no room for sentiment or loyalty towards the supporters in this game.
But back to my point, all the recent talk about player counselling and sensitivity training is nothing but PR smoke and mirrors, designed to downplay the fact that allot of these guys are just arrogant troublesome jerks with an inflated opinion of themselves. The reputation of "the club" is all that matters....and by that I mean its ability to keep making money for everyone on the gravy train.
So no, I don't think we need to mollycoddle these footballers any more, if their massive PR machine can't hide or downplay their latest scandals, then they need to live or die by their actions. At the end of the day it's a two way street - we'll cover your arse as best we can, but if you keep crossing that line, then you're on your own....and good luck with your futures endeavours.
Ps. Don't wait by the phone for us to ring back...........
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