Does money talk and ethics walk? – Freddie Cossor
It goes without saying that, football is the largest sport in the world. It is a sport where players and coaches can earn eye watering wages and broadcasting companies can make a fortunate from the millions upon millions of viewers who tune in to watch their teams play. But the question I pose is, has football become a solely money orientated industry, where morality and ethics won’t stand in the way of clubs and players doing all they can to obtain as much money as possible?
Contrary to the question, it is clear that in recent years the Premier League and the clubs themselves have made a great effort to make the footballing community more inclusive and accepting with movements such as BLM that have been dominating football for the last two years now, and official LGBTQIA+ club supporter groups. Players and pundits such as Raheem Sterling and Thierry Henry have been very politically active in expressing the unrivalled importance of BLM remaining relevant in football and that, still, more can be done to combat racism. Following the 2020 Euros Final against Italy, some fans have since been permanently banned from all matches in England and Wales for ten years for their racist remarks aimed at Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford. Furthermore, and looking at ethics more broadly, very recently a Leicester City fan was banned for life from the King Power Stadium and arrested for the punches he threw at some of the Nottingham Forest players. This is of course demonstrating enormous steps that are hopefully encouraging football administrations and communities to care more for the welfare and enjoyment of the players and fans rather than just their pay checks.
However, we are still a long way off. There are many cases of footballers who have got away with offences and are still playing today. They do this either by acquiring a prestigious lawyer who can get them off the charges, or clubs will just disregard the offence and the public uproar. For example, Lucas Hernandez (Bayern Munich CB) won his appeal against a six month sentence that he was charged with for disobeying a restraining order on his wife. He was convicted for being domestically violent towards her in 2017. He is now allowed to play. Another very recent example, Kurt Zouma (West Ham CB) has been in the news following a recent video, posted by his brother, of him harming his cat (see the video at the end of the article). David Moyes still selected him for the game against Watford on the basis that he is one of their best centre backs and would help them win the game. I’m sure that if this were any other profession, you would almost certainly lose your job for these sort of offences, so why aren’t they? Why should footballers be above the law? Whilst, as I previously mentioned, baby steps have been made within the footballing community, we are still a long way off from being at a stage where having the best players, who will get the results and will therefore rake in the most cash for their clubs won’t be prioritised over general ethics and morals. More needs to be done from higher administrations within football to ensure offenders are dealt with appropriately and the general welfare of players and fans is prioritised.
It must be stated that women’s football is growing so rapidly, with television viewing figures going up by over 350% in recent years and registered European players going from 1.270 million to 1.365 million in one year. It is great to see some improvements towards hopefully a slightly more level playing field in terms of viewership and wages in men and women’s football. But even still, the Arsenal and Manchester United women’s Premier League teams are managed by men. How many women manage the men’s premier league clubs? None. In fact, there is not a single female managing a male club throughout all four of the professional divisions in England. Maybe one day we will experience a fairer footballing community where a woman can manage a men’s team too.
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