Betalogue

Both Thierry Henry (Arsenal) and Dion Dublin (Aston Villa) are in the news for the wrong reasons, i.e. for bad-tempered reactions on the pitch. Dion Dublin was rightfully red-carded, while Thierry Henry was fortunate to escape with only a yellow card.

Both have since apologized, although I could only find a mention of Thierry Henry’s apology in the French media, for some reason.

It’s really puzzling that seemingly nice, typically “placid” players such as Dublin and Henry can so easily let frustration get the better of them on the pitch. I have little doubt that their reactions were in response to something that another player had done to them (whether it was caught on camera or not), but players with their level of experience should simply know that reacting this way can only do harm to them and to their team — and that they should never, ever let themselves go.

The good thing about increased TV coverage of football games is that players just know that they won’t be able to get away with anything of the sort. I remember back in the 1980s, when people were worrying that football was becoming too violent and that too many players were getting away with murder. In retrospect, it seems that things have actually improved instead of getting worse.

Compare this to hockey, where violent conduct is actually encouraged and glorified on TV, and “body checking” is already permitted for 11-year-old players… It’s almost like night and day.

This entry was posted by Pierre Igot on Tuesday, March 4th, 2003 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.