The clubs definitely have a responsibility here. It’s much more than Uni or Employer relationship.
Clubs fulfill a pastoral role in the lives of their players. The sacrifices clubs demand of their players from a young age mean that players need guidance and welfare provided to them by the clubs. It’s the responsibility of the game at large but clubs in particular to ensure that players have life choices beyond being a footballer and are supported in those because the reality is that the majority will have to pursue other avenues.
It’s better now than it was even 20-30 years ago (with obligations around education) but clubs can and probably should still be doing more. Liverpool do more than most here but improvements can still be made.
You’ll be surprised at how many physios at top clubs were academy players that didn’t make it 20 years ago. That was one of the few options open to them. Now there’s a lot more avenues they can go onto pursuing and being successful at so that if they don’t make it, they’re not wondering what else is left for them in life.
It’s important because naturally it can be such a crushing disappointment to have to process and deal with at such a relatively young age.
Incredible that this didn’t happen so much (if at all) in the Man City pedophile years. Mental health issues can’t be fixed, can only be treated, so if not diagnosed then it’s difficult to help people out.
In a way, I’m beginning to wonder whether it is some form of subconscious safety mechanism that they have started to employ after Hillsborough, that means they have to deflect any blame away from themselves at all costs, just in case any single act of wrongdoing they are guilty of brings the whole case on their supporters history for being the great innocents crashing down.
How the fuck can an allegation of spitting on a staff member get turned into a conspiracy theory about Hillsborough in the space of a paragraphs
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Roma mob who attacked Sean Cox at Anfield were at least partly motivated to get their retaliation in first after seeing what their fans had got away with against us in the previous round
The mental gymnastics required to be a City fan while owned by that regime have broken them. Same thing is probably going to happen at Newcastle eventually.
100% he should be asked these questions but equally he’s entitled to ask why the media focus on football engaging with Saudi Arabian entities and not on government and UK corporations dealing with Saudi Arabia on a wholly different scale altogether.
Football shouldn’t be the proxy for people’s moral outrage when the elected government continues to deal with Saudi Arabia almost unconditionally.
Howe could have pointedly replied that he hadn’t spoken with MBS over the last few days as MBS had been too busy speaking with the PM. Maybe the media should direct these sorts of questions towards Johnson?
That’s the point, having taken the job he’s fully on board with parking those issues and is 100% comfortable with doing that. He didn’t have to take the job.
