• 23 Aug 2023, 1:02 a.m.

    Well, OK but I don't think anyone here is doing that. No one bats an eyelid at, say, a bank firing a member of staff because they get caught in possession of pictures of young boys, and unless said individual changes their name and their appearance and everything else about themselves, purges all acknowledgement of that identity's existence and starts afresh with a new one, they're not getting employed by any other bank or halfway joined up corporate organisation ever again. Now make that bank worker a footballer and those pictures of naked children pictures of a beaten up woman and you're in a not dissimilar place, except it's rather harder for a Premier League footballer to simply shed their identity and start again in the hope that no one will ever recognise him. Hell, it's apparently pretty difficult for a bank worker to do that.

    Other clubs not wanting to sign Greenwood isn't an incorrect move on their parts, because they have to consider the position of their fans. And if you're saying that the fans shouldn't have that position because he hasn't been found guilty, then you're asking people to slavishly kowtow to the absolute correctness of the legal system which is a somewhat illogical position. So if we accept that the legal system is fallible, then the only way to get what you seem to want is to stop putting footballers in the news.

    You might be better off commanding the tide not to come in, Your Majesty.

  • 23 Aug 2023, 1:15 a.m.

    I think there's definitely a case for not putting a footballer in the news for a week, without any comment on the elephant in the room.

    The complete abject failure of our society, if what we are encouraged to believe is true, is actually the case.
    (You might choose the serial killer nurse who has just been convicted of murdering babies as another current example, should you be so inclined)

  • 23 Aug 2023, 4:22 a.m.

    Greenwood isn’t the first person to have this happen. We’re in a post-Me-Too world, and a world where social media empowers people and groups, for better and for worse, who previously had no power.

    I understand an argument about the specific case at hand, and the general idea that an unknowing mob having power to impose penalties without due process is not a good thing.

    What I don’t understand is this whole thing about how we should be improving things as a society so that cases like this get handled with that due process. It’s fine in theory but seems to ignore that Me Too and the backlash against public figures accused of abusive behaviour (convicted or not) is a manifestation of people being so angry at how the systems of due-process have failed to get anywhere close to doing this right, and society as a whole has failed to get to grips with it’s creation and toleration of abusive men.

    So it seems like there is a demand on people do what they have been trying to do forever, and getting nowhere, instead of doing this new thing that.. whilst not being an especially good thing.. has moved things forward considerably and made conversations about consent and abuse mainstream and (as you can tell by the visceral opposition to it all from the all the men you wouldn’t advise anyone to date) it is making men fearful about their past and future conduct because the rules have changed. Good.

    Yeah.. the justice system should be fixed so that people trust it. More importantly, people’s behaviours and attitudes to sex and consent should be fixed so that women aren’t so scarred by their experiences that the natural assumption from a case like this is that the guy did wrong and will probably not face the correct consequences… because they never do. The way it’s being done right here isn’t the way it should be done, but it’s sure-as-shit more effective than anything else anyone has tried.

  • 25 Aug 2023, 2:43 p.m.

    Gylfi Sigurdsson in discussions with Lyngby about restarting his career.

    Rubiales won't resign.

    Have at it.

  • 30 Aug 2023, 11:23 a.m.

    Interesting developments on society and morals this week.

    News that on the back of moves to re-establish publicly funded protection for him, The Duke of York (he had ten thousand {wo}men) is to be privately and publicly rehabilitated into the royal family.

    ...but, you know, footballer be gone.

  • 30 Aug 2023, 2:32 p.m.

    So a family of billionaire colonialists who enjoy unrivalled privilege and are accountable to nobody have lowerstandards than ManYoo. Whodathunk it?

    The Sweaty Nonce is as unconvicted as Mason Greenwood, and the people who don’t think Greenwood should be a footballer almost certainly think Andrew shouldn’t be anything remotely public either.. so it probably only says something (that we all knew anyway) about the Royals, and nothing at all about society.

  • 30 Aug 2023, 2:42 p.m.

    It says lots about society. It says that we haven't got one. At least not a democratic one. For a democratic society there has to be scrutiny, and accountability.

    You might call it regulation.

    It's sad that in all of our living memory that was at least true to a degree. Unfortunately our society is now (intentionally) broken, and we are run by financial interests, and their psych-ops units.

    (I laughed out loud, on oh so many levels, hearing BP's adverts for their high priced vehicle charging network, for the first time recently)

    Unfortunately our country is stuffed full of people not looking properly, who will hold the view that the good old queen was a wonderful servant to the country. Not because they necessarily agree with paying off complainants in coercive sexual abuse cases against her son, but because they are told that's what she was. With no real first hand evidence, nor understanding of what the monarchy is for, or does.

  • 30 Aug 2023, 3:27 p.m.

    Well guns are out of the question as America has those in the name of freedom and this country is one of the least free places with all sort of odd restrictive bollocks everywhere. The only thing people do here is kill each other for no apparent reason, (it's a distraction) and the other country to have some law about the right to weapons is the Phillipines where the murder rate is the highest in Asia (outside of the Chinese government murdering loads of Uyghurs)...

    I guess the people have to push for a free press again. Pity deregulation has fucked the world.

    Chicago: Bothered.

  • 30 Aug 2023, 4:59 p.m.

    As things go that might be the least surprising thing ever. It would be nice if we had a world cup without FIFA but alas the money is too much...

    The human race is rubbish (but then again we knew that...).

    Chicago: Counting Shekels.

  • 30 Aug 2023, 9:37 p.m.
  • 31 Aug 2023, 7:21 a.m.

    I think I probably fasted for longer while already in hospital.

  • 31 Aug 2023, 11:34 a.m.

    We can all give thanks that Luis Rubiales' mother has been discharged from hospital after her traumatic three day hunger strike. God has spared her, to continue the good fight for another day. Presumably after lunch, or maybe dinner.

  • 31 Aug 2023, 12:24 p.m.

    So all those thoughts and prayers worked after all?

    Hurrah. And Hosanna. En Espanol.

  • Squad
    31 Aug 2023, 12:39 p.m.

    She’s had longer siestas.

  • 5 Sep 2023, 10:40 a.m.

    Seriously dude, shut up. You exercised your right to take a massive wad of Saudi cash rather than take a fruit;ess stand against just one of the many shitty aspects of the world. Just own it.. don’t tell us you feel sad because people said mean things about you even after you wore a rainbow bootlace.

    (Also, people should leave him alone. Football is rife with real homophobia, don’t hang one guy because he actually dared express some opinions but turned out to be imperfect.)

    Everyone Sucks Here.

  • 5 Sep 2023, 11:08 a.m.

    I think it's important to demonise someone who has probably genuinely done their best with a good heart, because they have exercised their choice in an imperfect world to maximise their career...as almost all of us do one way or another, and some people don't like that.

    I am very unhappy that people continue to live and work in a country that breaks international law, undermines human rights, and operates as an overtly aggressive racist class riven state that oppresses it's citizens.

    We should all just crawl into a hole and die, to avoid risking being hypocrites.

    ...or we could do what we feel we can do, to try and improve things, while recognising that it is an imperfect world, and we have to live in it.

  • 5 Sep 2023, 6:35 p.m.

    He played for the Scouse. Of course he’s a wrong ‘un.

    Chicago: Good judge of character.

  • 6 Sep 2023, 8:36 p.m.

    Quite surprised in all this discussion of the morality of taking Saudi cash, nobody seems to have mentioned the King taking literal suitcases full of it.

    I'd definitely prefer a good guy to take it, and benefit lots of ordinary people...as I've no doubt that it will.