In spite of it being the last day of the Premier League season, with five teams at risk of joining West Ham United in the Championship and all the clamour and passion that familiar last day frenzy throws our way. In spite of it being the European Rugby Cup final in Cardiff, which served up the equivalent of the Liverpool comeback with Leinster proving triumphant against a shellshocked Northampton. In spite of the best European golfers dualling in Southern Spain for the World Matchplay title - it was two non-competing sportsman who took centre stage.
Both Lance Armstrong and Ryan Giggs have had their names dragged through the mud in recent days. Armstrong (the 7 time Tour de France winner and spokesman for anything is possible after his winning battle against testicular cancer), was called out by former teammate Tyler Hamilton on the prestigious US show '60 Minutes' stating that both he and Armstrong injected themselves with EPO. Hamilton has since returned a medal he won at the 2004 Olympics as a rite of passage and redemption. Whilst Armstrong remains silent on the matter except for a tweet on Thursday night after the broadcast which read, "20+year career. 500 drug controls, in and out of competition, worldwide. Never a failed test, I rest my case."
Well it does not really rest there unfortunately for Lance. Having formally retired now from his illustrious cycling career, the feats remain in doubt in fact they have done since he returned from surgery to win the Tour; you came back from chemotherapy and won, and better than you did when properly healthy. Now in the development of human beings, even that is miraculous. Armstrong has these feats at stake, as well as his role as spokesman and ambassador for many charities and organisations, nevermind the endorsements he is still paid for the use of his image. Now not only is the national exposure of Hamilton's testimony, but also Hincapie and Floyd Landis (another cheat) also state that Armstrong cheated knowingly.
As for another cheat in Europe, for the past few weeks, there has been a big campaign by freedom-of-speech lobbyists stating that the constant use of super-injunctions used by celebrities to sustain their wall of privacy. The biggest one doing the rounds and offering lots of opinion in papers and call-in shows, is the one concerning a high profile footballer with a clean cut image had an affair with an ex-Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. The crux comes because Ms.Thomas has been vilified for wanting to gain income off of her stories, whilst the footballer is allowed anonymity.
Until today, when MP John Hemming used parliamentary privilege to name the footballer as none other than Ryan Giggs of Manchester United. Giggs the 12 time Premier League winner, one of the most decorated footballers of his generation, and recipient of both the PFA Footballer of the Year and BBC Sports Personality of the Year in the last two years. Giggs is less than a week away from the Champions League final at Wembley against Barcelona. The clamour from the press - front and back page- will be immense to get quotes from him, and I am sure his manager Sir Alex Ferguson will not welcome the unwanted distratction to his preparations.
The problem I have with things and the irony of the situation is that you have two esteemed sportsman both nearly the same age who have peaked on the highest stage and have spent the majority of their careers in the limelight of adulation and the fine line between sportsman and celebrity.
Armstrong feels he does not have a case to answer owing to his record in drug tests, and yet he responds to accusations via the slightly anonymous method of his twitter account. Giggs on the other hand has had his legs swept out from under him, even though the Herald on Sunday in Scotland, did produce a picture of him with his eyes blanked out to keep the guessing game going - the irony being that jokes and rumours have circulated the internet for a number of weeks implementing Giggs as the man who slept with Imogen Thomas (herself a lady of Wales - hence the affinity between the two).
My problem with both though is that Armstong and Giggs through their established personas as role models and model professionals have let themselves down further, by not coming out to face the music. America has had this soap opera before in it's national pasttime of baseball during the steroid era as Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa all kept quiet as the whispers grew louder - now players are freely admitting hoping that time heals better than wounds.
Armstrong is an institution and his record is unbelievable but all the more reason to fit for it surely, by coming out in a press conference and stating categorically that he did not do it. When the whispers first started, I felt that if it were true and lets face it, it is slowly becoming that way, that it would be the end of cycling - the greatest example of the sport would be a fraud, and leaving proper figures like Mark Cavendish with no reason. Armstrong may not only ruin his own vaunted reputation, but also that of cycling itself. People will switch off and turn away from the sport.
As for Giggs, for so long a quiet man is it any wonder he kept quiet for so long or wanted to keep his privacy to himself - but he would not have been the first married footballer with children to play away from home and he certainly will not be the last.
My problem is that with footballers we know what they get paid for approximately three to five hours work a week, and in this business much like heads of large corporations they should act accordingly and appropriately. Football clubs are multi-million pound businesses and should expect their employees to toe the line in regards to conduct. The players seek privacy yet if they were grieving over the sudden death of a family member, or had been diagnosed with a serious illness they would announce a press conference and state that they would like their privacy to be respected; so what is the difference here, come out and admit it, ask for privacy then. We football fans are not stupid yet we do not want to be treated like cretins when it comes to matters of what we should and should not believe, especially when it is the average football fan that pays the wages of said footballers.
The old adage of straight from the horse's mouth has never seemed more appropriate, and yet we seem to have found not one but two mute stallions.
No comments:
Post a Comment