To be fair they have improved a bit in the last year, provided you haven't got hold baggage. I've seen that you tube clip before. It's very funny.
I don't see how that will make any difference, given I've seen people who are taking Ryanair flights necking pints of Stella at 5am in the Gatwick departure lounge.
Without meaning to climb up on a high horse but... I've been the victim of racial slurs pretty much all my life. I've had eggs thrown at me, glass bottles, rocks, drinks poured over my head. It wasn't until I grew up and bulked up a bit that it thankfully stopped. And I'd like to think that I'm still psychologically healthy. If anything, dealing with the fact that not all of society copes very well with minorities and learning how to overcome that fact without turning to the same hatred that fuels it has made me more sane than I ever was. The idea that coming from a place like Togo leaves players at a disadvantage is an interesting one, but having spent a large chunk of my gap year travelling that oft misunderstood continent, I can say that its biggest problem most definitely isn't modernity or advanced living, but how to spread that quality of life to the 90% of citizens who simply don't have it. Adebayor certainly doesn't lack examples or precedents - even devoutly religious ones - in his homeland who are blessed to be in the 10% of 'haves'. And yes, some of them are painfully corrupt and will tell you that 'God ordained it for me to have this wealth so why should I give it away?', but very very few actual believe what they're saying. The abundance of top class African footballers with far bigger names and far more spotlight than the two we're discussing, who've never displayed one shred of psychological imbalance leads me to think that Adebayor is the cause, rather than the effect, of his troubles. Balotelli was privileged in the sense that he was fostered by relatively affluent parents to live in a relatively affluent country; yet he's still a sandwich and an egg salad short of a picnic. It may sound harsh, but imho the reason is simply the sub-culture of skewed values that the business side of football sadly creates in so many players. The fallacious attitude that I somehow 'deserve' all of this money and attention for ultimately doing something that - when stacked up against pictures of refugees drowning - really doesn't make one iota of difference to the world. People like Adebayor and Balotelli will have been living in this little bubble of privilege since a very young age. Without solid parenting and honest advisors (Adebayor certainly lacks both), it is all too easy for the cartoon hero to start believing the myth that the cartoon is actually real and that the money will last forever etc. To me, that is the point where psychological health begins to deteriorate into delusion.
This is one of the most powerful posts I have seen on not606, you make your point CK and it could not be clearer.
I don't think we should forget Adebayor's experience in the shooting and deaths on the coach he was travelling on. This and other reasons makes me reluctant to join in the bashing of the mans character.
Yes, an excellent and thought-provoking post, CK. It’s a very good point that Adebayor and Balotelli, like other successful athletes, have been given an awful lot of money and attention at a very young age. People don’t tend to have much sympathy for problems that arise from that, and understandably enough. Not everyone, and perhaps not even most, realize what your namesake seems to get: it’s an invitation to trade your worth as a human being for the magic beans of celebrity. I’m glad you were able to overcome the horrible things you describe. I certainly agree that good parents may be as helpful as anything. I ’d like to think that it is possible for strong character to overcome just about anything. But I’m not sure, and I would rather give someone the benefit of the doubt, unless and until he demonstrates he doesn’t deserve it. Reductio ad absurdem on this front is the rich man saying that it’s poor character that makes the starving steal food, since he’s always been able to resist the urge himself. I tend to sympathize with people I see as outsiders thanks to my own background. I moved five times between the ages of three and eight, including two different years in Europe. In the scale of things, it was no more than moderately stressful, but it resulted in a few quirks. I root for the away team and tend to be sympathetic to outsiders. If slight to moderate stress led me to develop some oddities, it seems to me that moderate to severe stress will tend to cause dysfunction. It’s certainly a good point about other players from non-first world places adjusting seemingly without problems. I’m no expert, but the story that got me about Ade was that he supposedly told people that he was only able to walk thanks to a Christian faith healer. If someone who said that has severe problems with his family, then converts to Islam, I tend to think that too much wealth and fame too soon for the wrong reasons is not his biggest problem. The two book titles I think of when I think of both Adebayor and Balotelli are Stranger in a Strange Land and Manchild in the Promised Land. In any case, you’ve made me glad I piped up, as your response has really made me think. Thanks.
Agreed. I genuinely think Adebayor needs help. Players like Balotelli just need a kick up the arse but there I go again jumping to conclusions. What's also worth noting is Adebayor's years of philanthropy in Togo, Ghana, Gabon and other counties over there. I'd take it with a pinch of salt but supposedly the reason he took so long to sign for City and then for Real, and then we ended up in a bizarre situation where City still apparently pay quite a sizeable amount of his wages, is that he siphons off close to £50k per week to his various charities. Now, the cynic would say 'well isn't that convenient, keeping £50k away from the tax man'. But looking at how much money he has spent on his family and the crap he seems to get from them in return, I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt on this one and call it as actual charity. Either way, he's done far more than Lionel 'the sun shines out of my arse so I don't pay taxes in an economically struggling country with sky high unemployment' Messi. He's a bit like Benny in that respect; I don't think either of them ever really liked football as a way of life. But both have used their privileged positions to do a heck of a lot of community work for those born without Midas feet. I think the anger amongst fans against Ade is that while Benny seemed to give his all even though he genuinely couldn't give a toss, Ade really does take the fans who pay for him to earn the salary to give the charity for an absolute ride, not showing up for training, missing months on compassionate leave, picking up mysterious 'injuries' whenever the fixture was being played beyond the M25, instigating dressing room rows, moving less on a field of play than Dimitar Berbatov himself. The list goes on, as does the Adebayor enigma. I rarely waste money on players' autobiographies. But I may just make an exception when it comes to his.
This year's FIFA says that Adebayor and Fazio are better players in their respective positions than Kane and Dier. In other words, it's official: Canadians know bugger all about football.
Re the above, there are many footballers who struggle to come to terms with real life. R.I.P Ralph Milne. Died yesterday at 54 from alcoholism and liver disease
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34192558 More of this, please United's transfer outlay alone probably could've solved the refugee crisis single handedly. There is far, far too much money in football with relatively little ROI. It's high time the game started giving back to the billions of people worldwide who made it what it is today. For a start, removing the World Cup from mass migrant murderers Qatar and serial bigots Russia. Sorry if that wasn't PC enough
Durham caught out Doesn't happen enough to the Chief WUM - actually I think the producers probably don't let people on air that are going to contradict him. Anyway apparently he said last week (or recently) that Fletcher's goals against Gibraltar shouldn't count as Gibraltar are not good enough. However a caller got through yesterday and pointed out that surely then he should argue that Rooney's goals against San Marino shouldn't count either - since he (like all of TalkShite) have been worshiping Rooney recently. He then changed his tune and claimed he actually meant that Gibraltar and San Marino should actually play in a qualifying competition first so that Rooney probably won't get the opportunity to score against them. That is a fair enough argument, but not what he was saying!
5 vs San Marino 3 vs Kazakhstan 2 vs Iceland (when they were ****) 2 vs Belarus 2 vs Andorra 2 vs Estonia 2 vs Slovenia 1 vs Liechtenstein 1 vs Macedonia That alone should put his total back to around 30. Digging a little deeper you find other things, for example his two games against Andorra came in one 2010 WC qualifier - but he failed to score in the reverse fixture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34199998 Great news for Jake as far as I'm concerned. If the drugs really were a coping mechanism following the tragic death of his child, banning him from doing the thing he loves most will only make his depression and anguish (and therefore the drugs problem) worse. Meanwhile, it goes from bad to comically worse for our pantomime villain... http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34198377
In which case we'd have to apply the same test to Charlton, Lineker, Owen, Greaves. I suspect Sir Bobby didn't score all his against top teams.
5 vs Scotland when they were actually good 2 vs USSR (once with Lev Yashin in goal)l 1 vs West Germany 1 vs Italy 1 vs Spain 1 vs Yugoslavia Most importantly, there's the obvious difference Charlton: 3 in the World Cup Rooney: 1 in the World Cup
What is going on in that picture on the Jake article? Is that the best picture of the ENGLAND INTERNATIONAL they could muster up? He's a lucky boy IMO.
