Patrick Collins: Arrogance isn't confined to those on the pitch, Sir Alex

10 April 2011 13:34
[LNB]The football season has seven weeks to run and all things are possible. In theory, Tottenham could win the Champions League, Stoke City could win the FA Cup, why, Fernando Torres could be voted Footballer of the Year.[LNB]But one thing will not happen: no footballer, no matter how stupid, will run to a pitch-side camera, thrust his face into the lens and bellow a barrage of four-letter filth.[LNB]There is a reason for that and we find it in the ban which is causing Wayne Rooney to miss next Saturday's FA Cup semi-final. After years of conniving at the excesses of high profile players, the FA have finally found their backbone. The Premier League are still searching for their own spinal column but they hope to locate it by next season.[LNB] Rant: Rooney's ban for swearing shows the FA are prepared to tackle the big clubs[LNB]   More from Patrick Collins... Patrick Collins: Rooney's foulmouthed tirade makes mockery of new campaign02/04/11 Patrick Collins: Parliament must step in to ensure crackdown on ref abuse02/04/11 Patrick Collins: Fabio Capello enjoys a tranquil stroll in the Cardiff sun26/03/11 Patrick Collins: Sorry is so hard to say when you are Sir Alex Ferguson26/03/11 Patrick Collins: World Cup? You haven't got a hope, England19/03/11 Patrick Collins: Feeble Fabio takes the easy way out on Terry19/03/11 Patrick Collins: Only a Champions League place can save the FA Cup12/03/11 Patrick Collins: Now football must part company with El-Hadji Diouf... for good05/03/11 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE And both organisations have been pushed along the path of boldness by the power of public opinion. Until now, they have pleaded impotence, lest they offend players, managers, clubs or any other vested interest which happened to raise  its voice.[LNB]Well, the public have had their fill of arrogant loutishness and Rooney's gruesome spasm was the last straw. Apart from a few starstruck apologists, he has attracted scarcely a scrap of sympathy. His punishment was not only light but long overdue.[LNB]And I sense the public would welcome similar sanctions for equally flagrant offences. For instance, referees have always been reluctant to send off players who surround and intimidate them because they suspect that the authorities would be unsupportive.[LNB]And so they temporise, they pacify, they take the road of least resistance when they know full well that thesolution lies in flourishing one, two, three or more red cards. As a bleeding-heart liberal, who usually abhors draconian solutions, I have to accept that such firmness would transform the conduct of the game within a month.[LNB]Inevitably, Manchester United take adifferent view. Rooney pronounced himself 'gutted' and babbled some nonsense about having 'apologised immediately'. He knows, as do the rest of us, that his apology was a ploy, a form of words which he never wrote and may noteven have read. His contrition is, therefore, about as deep as a puddle.[LNB]Rio Ferdinand, thinker and tweeter, delivered the profound observation that worse things are happening in Ivory Coast and Libya. Indeed, there are infinitely worse things going on in this world. But most of them we can't change. This one we can, and we should.[LNB] Which brings us to Sir Alex Ferguson. He has never been an easy man, but over the past quarter of a century he has deserved our respect and admiration. And yet, these past few weeks have seen him fall far below his own standards; first with his abuse of the referee Martin Atkinson, which fully merited his five-match banishment to the directors' box, and now with his reaction to the Rooney saga.[LNB]His paranoia was predictable: 'It will bring us together. It is a plus for us.' His undermining of Lee Mason, last Saturday's referee, was snide and clumsy: 'Mason has now put himself in the spotlight. If he doesn't send a player off for swearing. the question will be, has he got double standards?[LNB] Banished: Ferguson was back in the stands for United's win over Fulham[LNB]'It is a very difficult position the lad [Mason] is in. I feel for him. I really do.' Ferguson is better than that. Or, at least, he used to be.[LNB]But his attack upon Supt Mark Payne, of the Wolverhampton police force, was genuinely disturbing.Payne, the man charged with managing responses to crime and operations in Wolverhampton, said that had Rooney behaved in a public place as he behaved at Upton Park last week, his officers would have arrested him.[LNB]In his blog on policing, Payne added: 'I have seen a thousand Rooneys and I am sure most police officers will have. The same aggressive stance, the bulging eyes, the foul-mouthed rant, fists clenched, surrounded by his mates, all cheering him on. People in positions of influence have an obligation to behave like human beings. It is not a lot to ask.'[LNB]Ferguson was viciously contemptuous. 'Everyone has an opinion today. There is an issue in the modern world of a need to be noticed,' he said. 'There's a wee guy, sitting down there in the Midlands, probably never been recognised in his life, managed to elevate himself to whatever it is in the police force. Have you ever seen Wolverhampton on a Saturday night? Do police ever arrest anyone for swearing on a Saturday night? Dearie me. That's a good one.' [LNB] In other words, 'wee guys' like this senior policeman have no right to a view because they're not rich or famous. No matter that those views may be formed by bitter experience.[LNB]'My officers will face more Rooneys over the weekend, no doubt somebody will be injured in some meaningless fight. An officer will have to go and tell a parent that their son or daughter is in hospital as a result,' said Payne.[LNB]Some of us felt desperately sad when Sir Alex Ferguson demeaned himself so crassly. Because it showed us that the game's madness has undermined his old judgment, that he is no longer the man he used to be. And it demonstrated that football's arrogance is not confined to the pitch.[LNB] A reminder of the genius that used to be TigerThere was a moment in Augusta the other evening when Tiger Woods seemed almost in awe of his own talent. He had just played a short-iron shot of such entrancing subtlety that the Masters gallery was briefly hushed before it responded with rumbling acclaim.[LNB] Tiger stared, then he smiled, then he remembered a brief, acknowledging wave. This was just the way he used to be, when his world was a different place. It suggested that a page had been turned. [LNB] Roaring again: Tiger Woods has found his form in Augusta[LNB]For more than a year, his private dramas have been played out in the public glare. A flawed personality has been revealed and dissected, and his default reaction has been a hostile, hopeless frown.[LNB]The fact that he brought almost all his troubles upon himself ensured that sympathy has been in short supply. Yet if a mere sportsman can be considered a genius, then Woods surely merits the description.[LNB]Those who truly understand such things insist that he is the greatest player his sport has known. And the other evening he started to play to his reputation. Whatever the final round may hold for Tiger, it is good to have him back.[LNB] It must be time Draper paid for his ?250m messRoger Draper, chief executive of the Lawn Tennis Association, declares that he has no intention of quitting his ?400,000-a-year post. And, after five years in charge, he offers this extraordinary assessment of the progress of British tennis: 'There are some things we've done really well and some we can do better.'[LNB]Consider the facts: in that time Draper has spent around ?250m, money beyond the dreams of just about every other tennis playing nation.[LNB] Hanging in: Roger Draper (left) remains in his post despite Andy Murray (right) being the only Brit in the top 200[LNB]Yet we have one man, Andy Murray, in the world's top 200, and one woman, Elena Baltacha, in the top 100. At last year's Wimbledon, Murray was the only British player, male or female, to win a singles match. The British Davis Cup team now play in the third division of the world game and although theyovercame Tunisia last month, there are real fears about this summer's tie with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg if Murray cannot play.[LNB]So the past is miserable, the present barren and the future seems largely without hope. Yet Draper becomes quite agitated at the hint of criticism: 'It's not the village fete committee,'he says. 'We don't come in every day and think: How can we bugger up British tennis today?'[LNB]Of course, they don't. But after the sums they've spent and the shambles they've created, Draper and Co really have to go. Who should succeed them? On the basis that they could do no worse, I'd send for the fete committee.[LNB] P.S...[LNB]The prize for the week's most preposterous piece of grandstanding goes to Lord DigbyJones. Who? Well, Digby is a failed politician, an interview waiting to happen and chairman of something called SportAccord. [LNB]Fifa president Sepp Blatter was a guest at the SportAccord conference, so Digby stayed away. 'I warned the organisers I wouldn't be in the same room as Blatter,' he declared. [LNB]Blatter is apparently considering his position. After all, when you are snubbed by Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, then it must be time to go.[LNB] [LNB]  Explore more:People: Alex Ferguson, Sepp Blatter, Tiger Woods, Fernando Torres, Elena Baltacha, Andy Murray, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Martin Atkinson Places: Birmingham, Tunisia, Luxembourg, Libya

Source: Daily_Mail