Why Footballers Are No Role Models

By Bamidele Johnson

Just in case you have been  hiding under a rock, Luis Suarez has been banned from any football-related activity for four months, precisely for  sinking his king size incisors into the shoulder of Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini. Hideous conduct exhibited while the whole world, which must include Abubakar Shekau and his homicidal gang, was watching. The penalty he got is deserved, but  I have an issue with the scope. Banning him from stadiums is an abridgement of his right to movement. Banning him from training with Liverpool, whose shirt he wasn’t wearing when he ran amok, is a restriction of trade. That sympathy has been in conspicuously in short supply is understandable. Suarez isn’t the most lovable chap on the planet. When you’ve been charged with racism and stopped a goal-bound shot with your hand in a World Cup quarter-final match, you have earned the right to be reviled. Fans aren’t going to be generous in their affection for you when you are seen as non-stop whiner and a diver, who sits on the pitch in affronted disbelief when you fail to con the referee. Twice in the past, he bit opponents, copping lengthy bans, which didn’t stop him from completing a hat-trick of biting incidents.

While I understand the shortage of sympathy, it eludes me why many, fans pundits and prominent figures in the game, including the irredeemably corrupt men at FIFA, continue to hawk the ruse that Suarez was a bad example to children. A role model is what they think he-and footballers- should be. David Dein, former Arsenal Chief Executive, is one of the people so persuaded. Suarez, he reckons, failed as a role model.  Last season after the Ivanovic incident, British PM, David Cameron, bemoaned the hideous example set to kids all over the world. Dein and Cameron seem to suggest that the world should brace itself up for an outbreak of biting incidents in schools and on playgrounds. Uruguay, where Suarez has been supported unconditionally, presumably, will be the worst hit.

Footballers don’t sign up to be role models, I am fairly certain. It is a status forced on them by the society. Quite why a chap that happens to be good at sport should also be required to be some sort of societal ambassador for good behaviour is unclear to me. When on-pitch incidents, like the biting one occurs, they are greeted by excessively sanctimonious outrage as though they are capable of pushing young boys into yahooyahoo. Football has never held the moral high ground. Neither has it ever wanted to. It is not its job to do so. So, why put it on a pedestal it is manifestly unsuited to occupy and then criticise it for failing to live up to the standard that it never desired and does not deserve, but which we have set for it regardless? Placing footballers on a pedestal is dishonest. Given that the current superstars of the game are taken through lessons in behaving and speaking to the media, a superficial image is what the public gets. It is a

fact that footballers endure a lot of pressure arising from expectations related to on-field performances. They carry the hopes and dreams of their clubs and countries. It is also a fact that they are handsomely rewarded, but it is asking for too much if we expect them to also help raise our children. As a young lad, I had many football heroes. Some of them perpetrated the worst incidents of violence I have ever seen on a football pitch. Somehow, I never developed a desire to go and repeat what they did. Neither do I remember a surge in the frequency of X-Rated tackles among kids on account of what my football heroes did. It is for us to choose who we follow and who we don’t. Parents and teachers, sure, guide us. But in my experience, not footballers. If we actually assume that these chaps have the responsibility to guide our children, we must be a sorry lot. Footballers are human beings, a fact often lost to fans and pundits,  who inhabit a world

infected with hypocrisy. Footballers’ biographies are often dotted with incidents, addiction, gambling and other vices. The joy derived from reading them is often in how the human spirit triumphs over personal demons. It is almost impossible to think of a facet of public life where prominent figures have not set bad examples. Take your pick: music, religion, film, politics or journalism. If behavioural standards are based on what celebs do, civilisation is certain to be lost. Learning to be a good person (the definition surely varies) is far more complicated than that. Suarez will serve his ban. So will any other footballer stupid enough to go against the rules.  Form and injury permitting, he will continue to be a stunning footballer. Good or bad, Suarez is box office. He will inspire children with his undoubted skills and competitive nature, but he’s unlikely to offer them lessons in social etiquette. It is simply not their job.

•Johnson wrote from Lagos