Brilliant, Fergie knows. Understandable though, he's been completely undermined by Rio's attention seeking personality disorder after letting the world know what he though of Roberts taking similar action http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20017021 Thought what him and other players did today was utter stupidity, surely they should know that refusing to wear an anti-racism shirt is going to make you look like a right twat?
Not that I like Rio or Fergie but it was definitely Fergie's own fault for mouthing off about Roberts. Thinking about it, didn't Richards refuse to wear one too after Mancini said his players would? They weren't anti-racism shirts by the way, they were Kick It Out slogan shirts which is different. Whether you agree with their grievances about the organisation or not you should be able to understand that they have a right not to support the movement. Nothing to do with being a twat. Lets face it, half of those players won't know much about what Kick It Out actually does before putting on a shirt so who's really the twat? The one thing I disagree with is that they've stayed fairly quiet on the reasons for the boycott but then again perhaps they did it not to totally ruin the message being sent.
They're all muppets for not wearing it, not just Rio. I only made an article regarding it because of what Fergie said. Bit rich coming from Rio though after the choc ice tweet... I think this sort of **** only creates more segregation.
Tic-tac-toe.........sick and tired reading about this garbage - if the FA were allowed to handle the Terry case before the courts got involved it would've been sorted; instead we now have a convenient soapbox (along with the media feeding-frenzy) for "Mr Average" to grab the limelight which otherwise his abilities on the paddock wouldnt provide. Lets put this to bed.
Ashley Cole bit the bullet and apologised, JT did something similar, Rio and Roberts are only making things worse for a nation that is bored to snores with the whole thing. Rio has proven what a low life goose he is more than once, Roberts is just an attention seeker. Ignore them and hope they go away.
I know you weren't just singling out Rio, Fergie did that all by himself. The reason I mentioned Richards not wearing the shirt was that I was just thinking out loud that Mancini might've been in the same boat but it went under the radar. Kick It Out have done themselves no favours by failing to back up all their interviews that they love giving with any meaningful action. The most important thing they should've been doing over this is working with the FA to keep someone like Anton, who was totally innocent, better protected during the time between the incident coming to light and Terry being banned. There's also the fact that they as an organisation have done bugger all to pressure the FA after they handed Terry a ban which many believe didn't fit what they'd banned him for. All in all you can see why some of the players are angry that Kick It Out are showing themselves to be as toothless as the UEFA fines for racist chanting that everyone criticises. All the lip service they give about anti-racism when things are going well has been undone by their lack of action.
Being a Spurs fan from Surrey I can understand your bitterness towards Chelsea (as your surrounded by Chelsea fans) but can you try and offer some constructive debate?
Rio has no right to act the way he has given his racist tweet to Cole although whilst I don't agree with his actions I'd defend his right to do what he has. It's all part of Fergies plan to phase Rio out. He made it clear a before even the Euros Rio wasn't up to it. I have no doubt if Smalling, Vidic or even Jones were all fit he wouldn't be near the squad never mind starting in the first team.
To be fair to all, it's probably worth bearing in mind that the Kick It Out campaign will never actually be able to 'kick racism out'. It simply doesn't have the time, the resources, or the remit to do that (and you could argue that with the turnover of professional footballers, and their global roots, it's an impossible task for an organisation based in a single country anyway). They have a budget of only £500k a year, which is barely double JT's fine, and far less than a month's wages for a large number of Premiership players. What Kick It Out are able to do is raise the profile and get people talking. You could easily argue that by having significant players (like Rio, like Roberts, like Micah Richards, linke Anton) decide not to wear the t-shirt being sported by most other players, means we are talking about it. Possibly the maxim "the only bad publicity is no publicity" comes to play here.
For Kick It Out to really work, they need a few things to happen: Firstly, they need to provide the organisation with proper levels of funding. This would need to be at least 10x their current level, so a figure in excess of £5million a year. This can be funded in part from the FA coffers, but I think some level of direct funding from the clubs themselves and also from the players via the PFA would help to generate a feeling of involvement and relevance, and make everyone understand that they have a personal and a professional stake in the issue. Secondly, the organisation needs to work with similar organisations in other countries across Europe and the globe to raise standards across the game, so that there's less chance of an incident such as the Suarez case, where cultural differences are brought up in an attempt to mitigate racially abusive language and behaviour. Perversely, these cultural differences themselves are the stumbling block to this piece. And lastly, the organisation needs to be given some teeth. I'm not at all sure what they are actually empowered to do at the moment. Sure they can publicise themselves and the issue, but they could go much further, getting out into the community with training courses and awareness campaigns, but also running 'rehab' courses if a player at any level is identified as a risk of crossing the line. The concept of eradicating racism from football, or indeed from society as a whole, is always going to be a holy grail thing, but without the funds, the esposure, the international connections, and the remit to take action, I can't see us getting much closer to that goal.
For role models, footballers are probably the thickest bunch of twats to find themselves in such a position. I love that word, don't you?
Agreed Sadly no matter how much you spend or how much teeth you give any organisation racism will sadly never ever eradicated from society or football.
