http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/paolo-di-canio-anger-disguises-1822208? So we got over it then. We stamped our feet a bit, waved our fists and told Twitter just how outraged we were at Sunderland's appointment of Paolo Di Canio. Then we got on with enjoying our football. Which is exactly what we always end up doing in this wonderful, yet fascinating sport of ours. English football, just like British foreign policy, has picked and chosen another of its targets over which to get its knickers in a twist. Never mind the fact that its record on protecting black players in this country from racial abuse remains woeful. Never mind the fact that, two years ago, it sat on its hands as England coach Fabio Capello moaned there were too many black people in Italy. Yes, really. Speaking in April 2011, Capello said: "In Italy, we have a problem with immigration. Twenty-eight thousand refugees from North Africa - itâs too much.â As the national team were doing fairly well at the time (and many of us had no real grasp of the concept of trending on Twitter) that went under the radar. Fabio Capello Never mind the fact that English football kept as its captain for Euro 2012 last year a man awaiting trial for describing another player as a "F*****g black c***". Never mind the fact that when the Daily Mirror pushed the issue of the lack of black managers in this country they were accused of stirring up trouble with Chief Football Writer Oliver Holt subjected to disgusting abuse on social media. Never mind that Ollie continues to be condemned for refusing to be patronised into believing that "You know what you are" refers to anything but a clever way of circumventing the charge or racist chanting. None of this is to justify, defend, condone or mitigate in any way shape or form the previous conduct of Paolo Di Canio one iota. Sunderland's new boss must answer for himself the many questions that remain over his fascist salute(s) and his comments relating to Mussolini. There is still, however, no real answer as to why the chorus of disapproval we are hearing now was strangely absent during his time at Swindon. Some insist it WAS heard at the time. I didn't hear it. Yes, one of the unions withdrew their backing for Swindon during the Italian's time at the club. Yet how widely was that reported? Nothing in the way of protest to register on the Richter Scale. The BBC had been running a Di Canio column on its website for months before he went to Sunderland. It made good copy for many of our newspapers and websites. Yet no outrage or anger at the platform given to him there. nd as for the idea that the MP David Miliband has made some sort of principled stance by standing down from the Sunderland board - do me a favour. Miliband could not give a tuppeny duck about Sunderland. He is off to America to make money, which is why he is about to quit as an MP. David Miliband cares most about David Miliband. The brutal truth is, English football is mired in hypocrisy and selective vision. Always has been. I actually wrote this column last week. And exactly what I thought would happen has done. The air is not thick with the stench of burning season tickets - and most certainly will not be if Di Canio keeps Sunderland in the Premier League. Newspapers will not boycott the Black Cats. The television companies will not switch off their cameras and the radio stations will not turn off their microphones. Actually, if Sunderland stay up, fans will come in their thousands to hail the maverick Italian as a hero. A couple of months ago, when Di Canio was linked with Reading, I wrote this. At the time I was asked on Twitter why I was not more appalled by Di Canio's fascist salute. Of course I am. But I didn't see any managers in Leagues One or Two refusing to shake his hand because of his personal views. I didn't see any players refusing to play for him. I didn't see an TV channels refusing to give him airtime because of his political views. Football just gets on. In fact, where are the players - black, white, whatever - at the Stadium of Light now who feel so strongly they cannot work with him? The truth is that English football has long since developed a way of negotiating perceived - or real - crimes and misdemeanours. Pragmatism has been the code by which the sport has lived its life for years. You don't have to love the people you work with, you just have to make it work. Which was why Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham formed such a prolific partnership for Manchester United plundering silverware - but couldn't stand each other (a dislike, to clarify, based solely on a personality clash and not racism). Which is why Glen Johnson was able to play in the same team as Luis Suarez despite the Liverpool striker's slur directed at Patrice Evra. Which was why Evra has since firmly buried the hatchet and offered his hand to Suarez. Which is why black players up and down the land have done so ever since. Which was why Jon Obi Mikel gets on with playing in the same team as Terry despite the FA finding the Chelsea skipper guilty of racist abuse. Which was why Rio Ferdinand, so desperate to go to Euro 2012, was willing to play in the same England team as Terry. John Terry and Rio Ferdinand: Former England team-mates Getty Images Three years ago, the Leicester defender Wayne Brown left the club shortly after declaring to his black and Asian team-mates that he had voted for the British National Party. The Foxes had suspended him and held an internal investigation. Did he go onto the dole? Was he cast into football's outer darkness? No chance. He signed for Preston a couple of months later. Working within this industry you think solely in footballing terms rather than allow yourself to be caught up in the trap of judging people as men. Because if some of football's protagonists were judged as men you'd have to close the sport down. Football has had more than its fair share of players jailed for sexual assault, violent assault, drunk driving, the lot. If they can play a bit, however, the fans will still be interested in their views on the game, they will still get a tape recorder stuck under their noses and - most importantly - clubs will always take him. Not only that, it has often been admitted openly by fans that if some foreign despot intent on raining fire and brimstone on this country were to take over their club, clear the debt and invest in new players, supporters would not give a flying wotsit what his views were. There are chairmen and managers up and down the land whose private opinions, if they were made public, would leave the wider public appalled. We are hearing some of them now from the likes of, for example, Dave Whelan at Wigan. Most journalists could tell you tales of bosses - past and present - whose quips and faux pas place them firmly in the dark ages yet never see the light of day. It is all filtered out so that Planet Football can go about its daily business. The Paolo Di Canio circus has a few more miles yet left to run. But football was always going to get over it once the games began again. It has always been that way. We are kidding ourselves if we think it will change now.
