Patrice Evra Mario Balotelli Ashley Young. Rio... oh wait.... following platini's amazing and frankly appalling statement concerning players who are victims of racial abuse being booked if they walk off who do you think is most likely to be booked? Would you stage a protest where everyone on a team walks off the pitch for 1 minute during your first game to protest this UEFA policy?
Is it a UEFA policy about racism and abuse, or is it just an unthinking application of the rule about leaving the pitch without consent from the referee? According to Platini the correct procedure is to tell the referee about abuse, he then tells the police. Anyway, it seems they are putting on a brave face about their choice of hosts.
I think Balotelli is most likely to be booked first, though it may involve a t-shirt message rather than leaving the pitch.
Evra wouldn't have the backbone to walk off he'd just run to the nearest french media outlet after the game and tell them.
I'm going to bet Ashely young dives and the ukranians get on his case and then all hell will break loose in the media.
If there is any problems it will be likely to be against England or France as they are in Ukraine's group and have a few black players in the squad. But I do think it has been hyped up so much that people are expecting it like it is an inevitable event, whereas probably nothing will happen. Think most of the problems will be off field outside the stadiums tbh. However I will be listening carefully to the England and France games vs Ukraine.
andy carroll to be accused of it by evra... andy to accuse evra of homophobia over his pony tail... you heard it here first!
Patrice Evra - won't be on the pitch, it'll be Clichy Mario Balotelli - most likely by process of elimination. Ashley Young - does he ever try to make a tackle? Rio... oh wait....
I would love to see a ref refuse to book a player for walking off. **** the establishment and their stupid rules!
I hope no player suffers the sort of abuse we suspect they might but if it does happen then I would back 100% any player who walked and frankly think his team mates should follow suit. Would be interesting if there was a referee who was abused and HE walked off bet they wouldn't give him another game eh.
I always thought players were free to leave the field of play (we see it fairly often when a player picks up a slight knock and go to the sideline for treatment whilst the games being played) but got booked for re-entering without the referees permission...?
I think it just prove how heavy handed and frankly out of control the top of the game is. in a real sport if some guy, even if he is elected president, made a sweeping policy statement or rule like this there'd be guys out telling him where to go... the refs should issue a statement saying this is a load.
Haha. I hope its an English player so we can look even more stupid. Imagine that, an England player walks off the pitch after being racially abused, the camera pans over the the crowd and whos there, John Terry in his BNP suit chucking bananas.
Do you reckon we'd see this too... [video=youtube;aav46Lek0Rs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aav46Lek0Rs[/video]
