Wayne Rooney was back to something near his best against West Ham on Saturday, sealing a huge win for United with a memorable hat trick. It was vintage Rooney- brilliant, majestic and aggressive all at the same time.
In the aftermath of his penalty, Rooney (pumped with adrenaline) said into the camera: “What? Fucking What?” It was probably not the wisest decision ever made but hardly worthy of a ban considering how rife swearing is in the game, right? Wrong. Rooney has been charged by the FA and banned for two games. Rio Ferdinand had this to say on twitter:
The point is, where do you draw the line? Do you charge every manager and player every time they swear? The presumption is that Rooney is being charged for swearing straight into the camera. It seems very harsh to me.
As it stands Rooney will miss Saturday’s Premier League clash with Fulham and the FA Cup semi-final against rivals Manchester City if he accepts the charge. Alternatively, Rooney can appeal against the charge and have his case heard at a hearing on Wednesday.
FA statement read: “The FA has charged Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney for the use of offensive, insulting and/or abusive language.
“This charge relates to an incident during his side’s fixture with West Ham United at the Boleyn Ground on Saturday April 2, 2011.
“Rooney has until 6pm on April 5 to respond to the charge.”
Whatever about Fulham, it would be a real blow to lose him for the semi final with City. If you missed it, here is the incident in question below:
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
What a load of balls!
Both what he did and the FA banning him!
What he did wasn’t exactly clever but the media coverage has got him banned, anyone else but Rooney and nobody would talk about it as much
I think this is an absolute disgrace and it is just the FA throwing the book at Rooney due to media pressure. There was outrage when Rooney didn’t get banned for the elbow on James McCarthy and I was reading online as recently as today that had he been banned United wouldn’t be in the promising position they are in now as Rooney has played a big part in recent weeks. In the last 6 games Rooney has got 6 goals, some websites went so far as to imply that he would have scored none if he had been sent off, (a) because he would have been banned for 3 of them and (b) because his momentum would have been broke. Ridiculous.
I don’t want to come across as biased. What Rooney said into the camera was ill-advised and was wrong. If this happened in a rugby game the player would be banned and nobody would complain. But sadly this is not rugby and the standard of behaviour of the players is nowhere near as high in football as it is in rugby.
Why is Rooney getting banned? Because you could hear him say fuck? In every televised game there are at least 10 occasions where you can see that a player, manager or coach is cursing. 90% of chants at games contain swear words. Everytime Rooney miscontrolled the ball or shot wide on Saturday chants of “you fat bastard” rang around Upton Park. As far as I’m concerned Rooney’s reaction on Saturday is not as bad as a player swearing in the face of an official. I think it’s far more acceptable to shout it into the camera lens then it is to shout it into the face of a match official.
The behaviour I describe above is wrong and I don’t condone it for one second. However, if the authorities want to kick it out of the game then at the start of next season they should inform all players and managers that if they swear at match officials, at fans, at cameras they will be sent off and banned. The problem would be solved in one weekend of fixtures.
Banning Rooney but letting all the other stuff slide is ridiculous.