Being brought up in Liverpool, where football was a big part of my upbringing, I have a cultural immersion in the sport. To the age of 7, I supported Liverpool FC and then had my personal “road to Damascus” experience and started a lifetime passion for Everton Football Club.

To not support one or other of these clubs was not an option.

One learns to love the pain and the joy of following Everton because the sport has been brought to its knees by commercialism, capitalism, commodification. The teams with the most money are the most successful. It is as simple as that. My team simply can’t compete on an equal footing with those teams that have big cash to spend. There lies the pain.

Read an article this morning in the sports pages of the BBC website (about the Marlon King case a footballer recently jailed for sexual abuse, and beating a woman to the ground breaking her nose) that sickened me (even more than the behaviour of Marlon King), here is the quote:

“Marlon’s agent is fairly clear on the subject and has a very cynical view,” added Hodgson (the Fulham FC manager, interviewed in the article).

“He believes there is no moral judgement in football and the fact the person we’re talking about can score goals will blot any moral values people will have.

I am sorry, but has it come to this, that because someone can play football and is part of the twisted economy that our society has ascribed to that sport, that a footballer has “carte blanche” to do what they want and then we blot out any moral values about their behaviour.

Discuss class……….

For anyone who would like to follow this story and possibly comment on my post here is the article in full:

King has future in game – Wenger

and subsequent related articles about a sport, that is not a sport, but purely business:

Jailed King “should get life ban”

Irish “cheated” Henry handball

Match-fixing enquiry probes 200 european football games