Men Behaving Badly

Before I start, it’s always men.

I thought long and hard (well, about two-and-a-half minutes) about the header and decided it should stay. It simply wasn’t fair to tar everyone in football with the same brush.

Actually, the real villain of the peace here is football. Or maybe money. But how do you chastise a sport, or even a medium of exchange? And football – or money for that matter - isn’t the real antagonist anyway because it didn’t do any of this deliberately. It merely created an environment where it could happen.

And there is no doubt that there is a lot of bad behaviour going on in football at the moment.

But it takes people to apply the finishing touch. Or men to be more precise.

For the sake of timing, just let’s look at four of the best – or worst – examples.

Player Power

Players often held up as role models. Maybe unfairly and some have spoken out on the matter in the past. They didn’t ask to be, after all. But it’s hard to argue that they aren’t influencers whether they like it or not. Kids - and adults - will look up to them. So the end-of-transfer window shenanigans didn’t exactly look great, did they? The players that threw their toys out of the pram, refused to play or took their ball home got exactly what they wanted, and what their actions were designed to do; get them out of a club.

The player who was the model professional didn’t get the move they wanted.

I know Joe Hart made an impassioned plea in defence of the players who downed tools or ‘trained at Real Sociedad’ – which will hopefully become a euphemism when this happens from now on – and said clubs stomp all over players if they don’t want them, but to be fair to the clubs they are paying these players hundreds of thousands of pounds a week and giving them long contracts that don’t seem to be, when push comes to shove, worth anything.

Except if you’re Marc Guehi it seems.

But even then, a manager had to threaten to walk to stop that move. And Newcastle United were openly frustrated that their player was effectively ‘on strike’ while at the same time hoping another player did exactly the same.

That’s a lot of unedifying behaviour to unpack.

All in all, it’s set a precedent that will surely see more and more players go down the Wissa and Isak route. And whether the clubs made promises or not – which doesn’t help if they did and then reneged – you’d hope there’d be a little more respect and goodwill. The two players above made their names at the clubs they then quickly wanted out of and were prepared to talk ill about. I note that none of this bad behaviour is ever displayed when they sign the long and lucrative contract.

Youth Players

How on earth did we get here? When someone sat down and penned the rules around financial fair play and the other iterations, did they ever think of the wider – and maybe hidden - consequences? I’m thinking not.

Because how can any rules that encourage clubs to get rid of homegrown young players make any sense or be good for the game? This creates not only bad behaviour but dangerous behaviour too. Imagine a club has a prodigy who looks like the next Lionel Messi at the age of six. They nurture and take care of them for years, the fans see them as one of their own and get excited and the player themselves has a deep affection for them and the club.

Then at the age of eighteen, the club sell the player to someone else at the other end of the country, or even another country, so they can balance their books or bring in a new player (who might not be an improvement) on a six-year contract. Now, we might argue that this teenager might benefit culturally from a change of environment. Well, they’d better because they don’t seem to get that much of a choice. It’s hard to think of a change to the rules and regulations that has done the game so much harm. Even the established players (Aston Villa’s John McGinn, for instance only last week) are questioning it and players barely question anything. So it must be pretty bad.

VAR

I can’t believe this is still an issue. How has it not been either scrapped or changed before now? Football – or those running it – have created another avenue for men to behave badly, whether they are the bloke on the pitch or especially ‘the fella 200-odd miles away in a box’.

Why must they keep getting involved? Why are they going out of their way to re-referee games by constantly interfering when their ‘help’ isn’t required? Fans, pundits and managers are all getting fed up and you’d think that would be reason enough to put a stop to it. But no, the VAR insists of making it about them. Perfectly good goals are being ruled out, perfectly good games are being spoiled and still they can’t see the damage its doing. The ‘most sterile game there is’ is hardly an upgrade on ‘best league in the world’ is it?

And while the actual referees shouldn’t take as much blame as their VAR counterparts, why do they not make a stand and stick to their decision; telling the bloke in their ear to get back ‘in their box’ more often?

Fit and Proper People

Not new, but bad behaviour in the boardroom is on the up too. This ranges from the disgraceful (owners who are intent on putting clubs out of business), irresponsible (those who are prepared to risk the club’s future for a shot at the big time) and just plain naughty.

The latter are the ones who try to game the system, blur the lines, skirt the rules and generally do anything to gain an advantage. Solidarity is dead. You sense a club owner would stand on another owner these days if it meant making one more pound, or getting one more point. The good of the game means nothing in the modern one. And this trickles down too. If an owner or CEO is prepared to do whatever it takes in the growing pursuit of profit or sporting glory, then they’ll not stop until they achieve it. If this means treating other stakeholders badly, they will and chalk it off as collateral damage. A season-ticket holder has to move so that the club can sell their seat to a one-off visitor for twice the price? Nothing to see here, Guv.

Why do I care?  As someone who cares deeply about fans, there is a common denominator here. In all the cases, it’s the fans who are the main losers.

When a star player on a long contract decides it’s not worth the paper it’s written on, or the promise they were given isn’t worth the paper it wasn’t written on, they will just go. The fan who has just invested hundreds of pounds in a season-ticket to watch them will just have to watch someone else (provided the club get a replacement in).

When a fan sees the young lad who grew up a mile from the stadium, and who embodies everything they themselves feel about the club, get effectively turfed out whether they like it or not so that the club can feel better about spending too much, does anyone give a damn about how that makes the fan feel? No, they are just expected to swallow it and move on.

When a fan celebrates a great goal with thousands of others, only for the celebration to be deemed null and void because someone 200-miles away saw a possible - and tiny - infringement and wants to be the centre of attention, do they think about how that is for fans?

When it turns a possible win into a defeat, and maybe is the difference between staying up and going down, or a European spot or not, does anyone consider how that ruins the game and makes it a really poor spectacle? Especially when it takes 4-5 minutes to even decide if it’s a clear and obvious error?

And when the owners of clubs play Russian roulette with the club’s future and finances, or makes decisions that are all about maximising profits, do they think about the way the ways are impacted, not only in the pocket but in the way they view their club?

If I thought the answer was yes to any of those, I wouldn’t be asking the question.

I started by asking who is to blame. If not football or money, then those in positions of power or making key decisions about the future of the game.

But maybe it’s not any of them. Maybe we fans are the ones who are really to blame.

For putting up with it. After all, we are the ones who put most of the money in; buying tickets, replica shirts, TV subscriptions etc. And if we didn’t’ the partners, sponsors and broadcasters wouldn’t hang around for long.

But then, maybe we can only do so much. The revolt against the European Super League demonstrated how fans can fight back when they stick together but what happens when the deluge of things thrown our way is so relentless that there is no way to stop it?

 Maybe there are simply too many men behaving badly, and all at the same time.