POSTED ON A MAN U FORUM
Not often I agree with the Sun, but if they are going against Man U then there is definitely wrong.
From today's "The Sun" (22/12/03)
Utd extracted the urine
By STEVEN HOWARD
THE look on Rio Ferdinand’s face said it all.
As Manchester United’s lawyer Maurice Watkins announced on Friday evening there would be an immediate appeal against the eight-month ban, Ferdinand stared vacantly ahead.
But inside his scrambled brain, you knew the one question he was asking himself: How the hell did it come to this?
Because, Rio, you went against your gut instinct and allowed your club to talk you into attempting a defence of the indefensible.
Ferdinand’s own judgment on himself was to take whatever punishment the FA were to hand out as soon as possible and return in time to play for England at Euro 2004.
When he finally realised the FA meant business, it was too late.
Instead, he was browbeaten into conforming to the general Old Trafford policy of fighting every perceived slight — especially when it came via the FA, the authority United want removed from administering the national game in favour of a Premiership-run body that leading clubs will control.
What started as a simple case of a player, either wilfully or not, failing to provide a urine sample has ended with United rightfully punished for their cack-handed attempt to euphemistically “extract the urine” themselves.
What actually was said behind closed doors at the Reebok Stadium during the FA tribunal on Thursday and Friday — apart from a general, leaked precis — may never be known.
That is why, if the drugs issue really is such an important one to the most popular sport in the world, these hearings should be held in public.
Like a televised US Senate committee, the people that fund the sport, either through season-tickets or TV subscriptions, are entitled to hear what purports to be the truth.
Only then can the clouds of collusion and compromise — along with the deep mist of cynicism that surrounds everything in football — be dispersed.
On the subject of truth, Ferdinand unwisely put his faith in Manchester United.
To date, they have failed him miserably — and they will continue to do so if they go ahead with their appeal.
Worse, they have used him for their own ends in their non-stop war of attrition with the FA , a battle far more important to a 100-year-old club than eight months out of a career of a player, however much he may have cost.
United and Gordon Taylor — to me as much a despot in his own sphere as the lamentable, vote-seeking Sepp Blatter is within FIFA — claim Ferdinand was hung out to dry.
He was, but only by the ineptitude of United and the PFA chairman.
Their total inability to recognise the fact that failure to take a drugs test, with its inherent suggestion that the player involved has something to hide, has resulted in a lengthy ban for the most expensive player in the country.
Despite agreeing with the punishment handed down by the FA, though six months would probably have been enough even for Blatter, this is not a cause for rejoicing.
And, strangely, I have a certain sympathy for Ferdinand, a player who thought he was being led to water only to find a cup of strychnine on offer.
Yes, he conformed to the image of the idiot footballer for walking out on his drugs test.
Yet, if we were all judged on mistakes we have made at various moments in our lives, we would all be in the dock.
This does not make me a Ferdinand apologist. I have not agreed with those who defend the England centre-half. But if there is blame to lay, which there most certainly is, it should rest at United’s door.
They have become so accustomed to riding roughshod over a fragmented FA that they thought they could get away with it again.
Their first mistake — apart from their customary arrogance — was to try to pick holes in the FA’s dope-testing procedure.
This was not the point. The crux of the matter was that Ferdinand, either with or without United’s complicity, left the United training ground.
Their defence on that matter was something that, in my humble opinion, should haunt Ronald Thwaites QC for the rest of his £250-an-hour career as a barrister.
The same man who, whatever his reasons for accepting high-profile cases, represented both Jonathan King and road-rage killer Tracie Andrews.
Their second error was misreading the mood of the public.
Ferdinand’s team — and that includes the equally culpable Alex Ferguson — thought this was just an in-house football matter.
They thought people who believe in Manchester United could not separate right from wrong.
That their loyalty to the club would preclude many of them from coming to a reasoned judgment — just as Ferdinand’s own judgment was clouded.
United failed to realise that the Rio Ferdinand case was more than just football. They failed to realise the general public has become increasingly disillusioned with the vulgar excesses of some of the modern-day players.
They failed to realise that, despite the example set by players such as David Beckham, Thierry Henry and Zinedine Zidane, the profession is besmirched by the usual coterie of louts and big-headed show-offs who think they are above the law.
United, as a club, are tarred darkly by the same brush.
Likewise Gordon Taylor, the discredited £650,000-a-year boss of the PFA.
How reassuring it was to see his simplistic, puerile arguments torn to shreds by the BBC Newsnight programme on Friday.
Sadly, for a game he professes to love — and what an inflation-proof pension he has got — I have little reason to doubt he will be right behind United’s appeal and stirring the spoon deep in the treacle.
If he has any shame, he will leave Ferdinand to serve his eight months rather than encouraging an appeal that could well double the initial punishment, a process the FA fear.
And if Taylor has any wisdom, which I think he has, he should go against his natural instinct to encourage his “anointed successor” Gary Neville to cause problems within the England camp.
As this newspaper points out quite clearly, trouble-makers in the England squad will no longer be tolerated.
As for drugs in football, I think we should concentrate on the performance-enhancers rather than the type used for recreational purposes.
The general feeling is that football, mercifully, is free of the sort of steroid use that pollutes some sports.
Long may that be the case.
FA chief executive Mark Palios has stood firm in his belief that this war against drugs should continue.
And he has to be applauded rather than used as a lever for football clubs, the PFA and interested TV companies to wrest control of the national game from the FA.
Certainly, no footballer will now ever “forget” to take a drugs test.
Not often I agree with the Sun, but if they are going against Man U then there is definitely wrong.
