Crime and Punishment - Part One

Does the payment of £50 for a ticket to a football match give the purchaser the right to shout abuse at a footballer who is playing for the opposition? Well I would have said yes, providing that abuse was in the realms of what passes as acceptable behaviour inside a football ground. Does that payment give the spectator the right to sing racists songs directed at a player, regardless of whether or not that player performed like a dog with three legs for most of the previous season when he was with another team? Probably not.

Shouting abuse is part of the match day ritual but there are times when it strays beyond the white lines of acceptability into the realms of criminal behaviour. I've been in crowds where black players have been subjected to monkey chants, where players (including I have to say some playing for the home team) have been called the quaint word and I have been in crowds where the opposition players have goaded the home supporters knowing that they could get away with it (step forward Steve Williams (ex-Southampton and Arsenal) and Alan Ball (ex-Blackpool, Everton and Arsenal) - don't worry Arsenal is only a recurring theme in this thread.

Mild mannered crisp lover and Cat Deely spurner Gary Lineker said after the infamous Eric Cantona incident at Selhurst Park that he was surprised it had taken so long for a fellow professional to take matters into his hands (or feet in the case of Mr C).

The two-match suspended ban for Manchester City's Emmanuel Adebayor (who has also been fined £25,000) following his goal celebration against Arsenal has already been described as an insult to football fans everywhere by one commentator. Apparently it signals a new era where supporters must politely applaud the opposition player who scores against them.

I don't agree.

What it says to me is that enough is enough. It doesn't mean that supporters have to suddenly turn into pie eating zombies any more than it means that when Adebayor returns to the Emirates and scores the goal which puts City into the Champions League at the expense of Arsenal that he can then challenge Usain Bolt's 100 metre world record. There is a respect campaign in place on the field at professional level and off the field at amateur level, isn't it time that spectators stopped believing that £50 means you can give another human being the sort of verbal abuse that would get you arrested if you tried it on outside your local pub at closing time?

To my mind £25,000 more than covers the 'suffering' the 30 Arsenal morons had to endure when he ran towards them, bearing in mind that he stayed within the playing area at all times. And just in case you think this is an anti Arsenal post I should add that Adebayor got of lightly with the stamp on Mark Lamaar look-a-like Robin Van Persie in my opinion.