Should Footballers Aspire to be Good Role Models?
(On the last day of YJA 2014, I thought I'd post the article that got me a place on the summer school)
Imagine you are 19. You are away from home for the first time. You’ve just been signed onto a contract worth over a million pounds a year, a life changing sum of money. Add into the mix constant media attention and the pressure to play well, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. With all the pressures these young players face can we really expect them to be perfect role models?
Football players have been increasingly scrutinised by the British media in recent years, leading to many negative portrayals of the elite few that make it onto the professional level. Many people have argued that they are bad role models, but this negative view can’t completely be their own fault. With nearly every tabloid newspaper revealing a ‘scandal’ from their private lives weekly, damaging stories are bound to come to light. This media attention has led to increasing amounts of pressure upon footballers: it’s no wonder they crack.
Many footballers did not have the best of upbringings in life. It’s easy to view an act as immoral or unjustified, but that’s only because you were taught right and wrong as a child. However, a lot of players never had these basic teachings; meaning that when fame and fortune is presented to them it often leads to unfortunate outcomes.
We should also be careful not to tar all footballers with the same brush. Whilst there are some who are completely morally repugnant, from biting other players on the pitch to affairs with team mate’s partners, the majority are regular people who play football and live quiet conventional lifestyles. There are also many who have earned their status as a role model, such as Thomas Hitzlsperger who came out as gay and Craig Bellamy who set up a foundation for underprivileged children in Sierra Leone. Once again the constant media attention upon these players has led to a warped and twisted view of footballers. In fact, the strength, determination and passion it takes to play football at an elite level is something that should be admired by younger generations, whether it leads to a career in the sport itself or any other profession.
There are others in society who would make much better role models, but the hard truth is that footballers will remain the role models of young boys and girls until the media sways its attention away from the football pitch. It’s time we looked away from the negative backstories of a few footballers and turned the camera towards more positive role models not just from sport, but the world of academia and business.
The simple answer is that everyone should aspire to be a good role model. In reality, however, we can’t expect each and every person, especially those under the enormous pressure that footballers are, to behave like upstanding citizens their whole lives. Before we begin to judge every little detail of footballer’s lives, we should look behind the story and determine who is truly at fault.
