February 22, 2010

Are self-obsessed sportsmen really news?

I thyink you might agree with me on this one. There are surely rather too many vacuous sportsmen apologising for their inadequacies at the moment? Now admittedly, I don’t think we’ll ever see Ashley Cole apologising for anything, no matter how crass his behavious. But recently, even his noxious behaviour has been exceeded by the gloriously misnamed Tiger Woods. I don’t think I am the only one who sees golf as a rather pointless pastime for old men and women – but apparently I have been let down by Tiger Woods.

I didn’t realise I had been let down by Tiger Woods until I saw him apologising to me courtesy of BBC News. Admittedly it must have been a slow news day. No celebrities were speaerating and even minor events such as the Haiti earthquake or crashing Toyotas were not high on the agenda. So the BBC saw fit to inform us that Tiger Woods has let us all down – though I do feel somewhat let down by the BBC for presenting a stage-managed PR stunt by a disgraced golfer as news.

Surely the only people let down by this self-obsessed man are his wife and children. And his alleged serial infidelities are nothing to do with me or you – and everything to do with those unfortunate to be married to him or sired by him.

It’s a similar situation with the rather tiresome John Terry/Wayne Bridge affair. Most people, if they are aware of Terry at all know him to be a weasel-faced over-rated thug who plays in a sort of adequate manner as a centre half for Chelsea (when not injured or showing people around the Chelsea training ground for a fee). And Wayne Bridge is a so-so full back who took a pile of money to play for mercenaries city.

Now call me cynical – but as Wayne Bridge was estranged from the slapper Terry had been shagging, the media circus that has built up around this story is, shall we say just a little overstated. Given that weeks later Bridge has decided not to play for England (although I thought that was Fabio Capello’s decision) and not shaken Terry’s hand when Chelski’s overpaid, over-rated mercenaries played Mercenaries-r-us – you begin to suspect that there is more to this story than a bit of rumpy pumpy.

But again does anyone care? I can’t help thinking that loathsome footballers should stick to what they are not very good at – playing football. Granted I suppose if you get paid millions for doing what most people do for fun… and get most days off with attractive slappers on tap wherever and whenever you fancy – you might be tempted to ideas of grandeur and become arrogant and self-deluded. But isn’t that rather obvious… and is it really news?