Errr, I hate to say this but...

...for the first time ever, I kind of agree with The Sun

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4474660/Our-Olympic-heroes-have-humiliated-arrogant-footballers.html

I believe we have no one to blame but ourselves. Particularly at club level we're willing to forgive anything as long as you still perform for the team. Look at the Suarez and Terry race issues as recent examples. Whether or not they did anything wrong, they still found massive support from their own teams throughout the saga. Mario Balotelli loses his temper constantly and stamps on people's heads and attempts to break bones, but many Man City fans don't care as long as he doesn't get sent off and keeps scoring goals. These articles always pop up when this sort of thing happens, but it's never changed. It's like a mother that has a spoilt brat of a child who gets away with outrageous behaviour but never gets punished, and she then has the nerve to tell everyone how hard they make her life. I'm not saying all football fans are Hippocrits, but a surprising amount apparently are. I bet some our own fans would do it too.
'What's that? Joe Mason went out on a binge drinking session, punched two women walking past and urinated against a church? That's disgusting, but punishing him would be outrageous because he scored a hat trick last match'.

Couple that with the ridiculous wages and minuscule fines for bad behaviour. If John terry was found guilty of racial aggravation, the max fine he could receive would be the equivalent of fining a man on minimum wage roughly 10p.

Moomin made a brilliant point on the other board. Thousands of footballers play on a matchday - if a single one of them dives or surrounds the ref, due to the publicity football gets it will be all over the papers.

What could an athlete in the olympics do that is the equivalent of diving?

We have seen simulation (hockey), protests (boxing), dare I go on?


Unnecessary criticism towards the sport!

Arkay v2.0 wrote:...for the first time ever, I kind of agree with The Sun

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4474660/Our-Olympic-heroes-have-humiliated-arrogant-footballers.html

I'm afraid I agree entirely.

Football gets a lot of stick through jealously. However I won't deny there are glaring issues.

How much money do top athletes earn? In guessing it varies tremendously depending on your sport and sponsorships, but it'd be nice to see just how much top footballers probably outdo them by.