Steve is OTM about player’s ignorance of the laws of the game; Lou Macari was interviewed outside Old Trafford last night in connection with Rio Ferdinand being charged and said that some blame must be attached to the FA’s drug testers for not making sure he stayed around for the test. He appears to have no understanding of the rules governing the FAs testing regime. And why should he? Unlike any other punter who spouted total ill-informed garbage, he will sadly be asked back, because as far as sports coverage is concerned, the aim is have controversialists and / or well known figures. The veracity of their statements and their understanding of what they speak about is an irrelevance. This means we vary between the Macari still rubbish, or the bland cliche ridden banalities of ex-players, who subscribe to the omerta which pervades the game.
This basically operates along the lines of – you’re no longer on active service within football, but you still earn you living by way of it and earn a corn occassionally from commenting. The rules of both silence about what went on in your day, about what you know about what’s going on today and the rule that says that you must at all costs steer well clear of topics that might open up debates that challenge the fundamental orthodoxies of the game.
You see it still with commentators saying that someone shouldn’t have been booked / penalised as there was no intent in the tackle; it just went wrong, as opposed to being a cynical attempt to bring down a player. Never mind that intent was removed from the laws of the game in 1993 eh?
PS – Here’s a list of revisions to the laws of the game which includes the one about penalties right near the bottom.