Final Whistle

I love reading the papers and watching the TV news when something which could potentially be a huge story happens, like one of the best-behaved Premier League footballers, Steven Gerrard, getting arrested and being charged with assault.

Being arrested is, in the UK, not indicative of anything other than the suspicion of an offence. Sometimes, even, it doesn’t indicate that much: just that you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being arrested does not mean you’ve done anything wrong: neither does being charged with an offence. There are four small words which hold up criminal justice in the free society that we, in Britain, have created, those four words being “innocent until proven guilty”.

It is a sad fact that Steven Gerrard’s arrest has been jumped all over by a media which is more concerned with soundbytes than facts, and will fail to mention Israeli bombings in the Gaza strip, yet devotes more than 20% of air time to this ’story’ about the arrest of a Premier League football player.

Let’s face facts, Premier League footballers are, by definition, human beings. This means they make mistakes, which may or may not affect their footballing performance. They make mistakes on the pitch; they make mistakes off the pitch. Does Gerrard’s charge make him less of a player? Does it mean he is guilty of an assault? And, even if he is guilty, does this make him “less of a role model for the kids”?

To answer the first question is simple, no, Gerrards arrest doesn’t make him less of a player. I read a story this morning which was subtitled as follows:

England midfielder unlikely to face disciplinary charges after being held by police following alleged brawl.

Well, that’s a relief! At least his club and the sport’s regulatory body aren’t as knee-jerk as most journo’s then. Had the opposite been the case, an imaginary spokesman for the FA might well have said “Well, since he’d been arrested and charged, and also because there was a right lot of press and that. We, you know, thought that we should fine Gerrard a couple of weeks wages because of his clear inability to avoid arrest. The police do know everything, and only arrest when they are certain of guilt, after all”

Even if found guilty, Joey Barton has proved a short spell in clink doesn’t preclude future Premier League performance. Liverpool’s title challenge might well take a dent if Gerrard were to be locked away, but I very much doubt that would happen, even if he did have any part to play in an assault, due to his impeccable prvious record (which, incidentally, would point to the ‘not guilty’ outcome, or release without charge, which looks the most likely result of this whole fiasco).

And that brings me round to my final question – I’m sure you realised they weren’t rhetorical by now – about whether this incident makes Gerrard any less of a role model ‘for the kids’. Firstly, no it doesn’t. Not unless he is charged and found guilty of an offence. Secondly, and more importantly, Premier League footballers are not teachers: they never asked to be a role model for children.

Believe it or not, the people who play football are selected because they are good at football, and trained how to play football better, not how to provide the nation’s children with an upbringing: most parents cannot do that, so why do we expect so much of our athletes?