Chris Stratford: Rooney should not have been only player placed in FA dock

IT NEEDS to be said at the outset that I have supported Manchester United for almost half-a-century and it has been known for me, on occasions, to wear red-and-white tinted spectacles when assessing matters regarding Old Trafford.

However, I swear – in a hand on Holy Bible context rather than contorted face in Sky Sports camera way – that I would be making the following points even had it not been a United player, Wayne Rooney, at the centre of last week’s media maelstrom.

Indeed, back in the days when Yorkshire Post readers were subjected to/honoured to have available (delete as appropriate) my thoughts on sport on a weekly basis through this column, I argued on more than one occasion that something should be done about players’ swearing.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

That is, I felt something needed to be done – and still does – about gratuitous shots being shown on TV of players’ swearing.

For more years than we all care to remember, every time a goal is scored, a contentious refereeing decision is made, or a clear-cut chance is missed, TV directors have seen it as their duty to ensure we, the viewer, get a close-up of the participants’ response.

No lip-reading skills have ever been required to ascertain the particular expletive being used, partly because it is always so emphatically articulated and partly because it is normally the F-word in its various forms which is the curse of choice.

Of course, in the majority of instances we are not able to hear the language turning the air blue around its enunciator, but this is where all the hysteria surrounding Rooney has left me baffled: does that really make that much of a difference?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Enough of a difference to lead to a witch-hunt which would surely not have been sated to everyone’s satisfaction even if it had ended with Rooney being burned at the stake (with Sky’s cameras there to relay every one of his screams)?

Let us for a moment ignore the fact that Sky Sports cameramen encroached on the pitch to provocatively thrust their camera in Rooney’s face – although we shall return to it – and consider this:

Would anyone watching the game amid the cacophony of a pub or club have had any doubts as to the offending word used by Rooney (twice, which constitutes, in some quarters, a rant) even without the benefit of sound?

No, of course they wouldn’t.

And – assuming many of those same viewers would later have watched Match of the Day – would they have had any doubts as to the profanities being uttered by players in other teams in other, less emotional circumstances, just because there was no soundtrack accompanying it?

Again, of course they wouldn’t.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Which is why I take issue with the Football Association’s decision to charge Rooney – or rather, take issue with them for charging only him and NOT every other player seen to be guilty of the same offence on MOTD.

For the FA’s statement declared that he was being taken to task for “the use of offensive, insulting and/or abusive language”.

No mention that it was because his expletives were audible; no mention that it was because his features, twisted with fury, all but filled the frame due to the proximity of the camera lens.

His crime was to use “offensive, insulting and/or abusive language” and as he later acknowledged, he was guilty as charged.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But why did he stand alone in the FA’s metaphorical dock this week?

Many will feel it was about time the Manchester United striker was brought to heel, and they have a point.

Rooney’s behaviour at times, on and off the pitch, has been reprehensible, and there can be no doubt he has escaped sanctions in the past when they should have been applied.

But a warped sense of justice should not prevail in which he is punished purely to appease those who feel he has ‘got away with it’ for too long.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And that, make no mistake, is why the FA acted in the manner in which they did.

They have been lambasted from all quarters for being spineless in the past when dealing with both Rooney and his manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

Within a matter of weeks they have taken advantage of opportunities afforded them by the pair’s foolhardiness to hand out suspensions to both and no doubt feel very good about themselves.

But the suspicion that their agenda has run parallel with those of certain sections of the media – those who despise Ferguson because of his truculent manner and Rooney for making mugs of their predictions that he would win England the World Cup last summer – will not go away unless they declare their intention to charge each and every player seen, repeat seen swearing, in future.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

They might also seek Sky Sports’ co-operation and ask them to use that touchline camera sans sound (asking rather than demanding being the operative word because we all know that he who pays the piper calls the tune).

What struck me as so ironic in all the furore which followed Rooney’s regrettable lapse was that the constant replaying of his outburst gave countless opportunities for the young and impressionable to view it.

It was particularly ironic that there will have been many children who did not even see the live coverage of the game who will have been subjected to the Rooney rant in the following days all because of an artificially inflated sense of outrage from people who supposedly wanted to protect them from being subjected to such language.

Trust me, even though the word was bleeped out on news reports most of them will have known what he said.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And, perish the thought, but those youngsters who did see the game, and whose parents follow United’s Premier League title rivals Arsenal, may well have heard far more profane utterances from their dads and even mums when Rooney netted the penalty which turned the game against West Ham on its head than issued forth from the villain himself.

It was an intensely dramatic moment, possibly a pivotal one in terms of the race for the Premier League title, and the Liverpudlian will not have been the only man in this country whose emotions will have seen him lose temporary control of his mouth.

But he was the only one who had scored a hat-trick and thus stuck it to his critics.