For me, this has summed up everything that has happened in the last two weeks, ever since Eduardo's theatrics against Celtic. If you know me, you know that I adore football. I always have, I still do, and it is probable that if out of everything I like and enjoy now, I could only choose one thing to keep with me until the end of my days, I would probably choose the sport. But the last fortnight has been a tough one, not just for me as an Arsenal fan, but for anyone who is a fan of this game.
I know Eduardo dived, and so does everyone else. Yes, there was a degree of contact between him and the goalkeeper, but it was a dive. Simple as. It is just frustrating for me, as an Arsenal fan, that the most surreal, hypocritical, self-congratulating zealous backlash to occur in recent years in football has started at my own club.
Whether or not you agree with Eduardo's two-game ban, the hypocrisy is perhaps the most sickening point of it. For the record, I agree with UEFA's decision to ban Eduardo, but only (and I emphasise only) if UEFA consistently use retrospective evidence. Wenger, whether you love him or hate him, had a point: in justice, you do not punish one crime and be done with it. When you set a precedent (and an ill-advised, quickly executed one at that), you must carry it through and be consistent. Everyone can see it except UEFA, and perhaps the Scottish FA, who were so quick to decry Eduardo as a cheat and a liar. Will ANY of the numerous players who have gotten away with footballing murder in the last two weeks receive a two-match ban? I doubt it.
No, the shor-sightedness and selective hypocrisy is the hardest pill to swallow. Whether it's Celtic or the Scottish FA, who were the first to call for Eduardo's retrospective punishment, and then blindly defend their own player who was sent off for diving the game after Eduardo dived, or UEFA, who seem to have a simple lack of knowledge or understanding when it comes to simple theories regarding crime and punishment, or even my own club, Arsenal, who join the 'Fair Play' campaign, then rail against punishment when this sense of play has been broken, or even our very own Wayne Rooney, who (in the eyes of the English press at least) won a 'clear' penalty when brought down by Almunia even though, hey, he was already halfway towards the ground when he was touched, and then, a week later, has the guts to claim that above absurdity when everyone knows and remembers his dive against Arsenal about four years ago that broke the longest unbeaten run English football has ever seen and represented a victory for deceit over open, attacking football.
This is a dive.
And so is this. But apparently not?
The day after the Manchester United vs Arsenal match, where the above 'foul' on Wayne Rooney was given, a paper (I can't remember which) raised the interesting proposition. Eduardo is a Brazillian-Croatian, who deceived a Scottish team. Rooney is an England international. Is there a conflict of interest? And to that I say yes, there is. The narcissism in the footballing world that I have described is not just limited to those inside the game. It extends to the reportage as well. If Eduardo was English and Celtic were a German team, and Rooney was Spanish and Almunia was English, would it have been the other way around? Think of players in the modern game who are widely thought of as divers:
Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast)
Christiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
Robert Pires (France)
and now Eduardo (Brazil-Croatia)
And now think of their English counterparts:
Wayne Rooney
Michael Owen
The two England players are not seen as divers. They are described regularly as two of England's best attacking players, praising their footballng intelligence, importance to the national side, and their ability to score goals. But both English players have dived, sometimes in the most important games. Remember Rooney's dive to end Arsenal's 49-game unbeaten run? Was he fined? Was he hell. And in the 2002 World Cup, Owen dived to win a penalty with which England defeated Argentina. Was there a national backlash? Not in the slightest. When England/UK dives for England/UK's benefit, it seems in the eyes of the national press to be A-OK. When foreigners dive at the expense of the English or United Kingdom, it seems to be equitable to murder. You do the math.
I will always enjoy football. But it is incredibly hard to defend the sport when it is clear to everyone that all the people involved the very same sport are hypocritical, inconsistent narcissists. Shame, football. Shame on you.
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