Why we all need to stop treating footballers like celebrities and start taking them to task instead

By David Maddock in David Maddock

Published 14:47 01/12/09

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It was fascinating to hear Sir Alex Ferguson's comment on players recently. They are, he said, so cocooned these days that they've don't know how to take responsibility any more.

It was fascinating too, to read Brian Reade's column, in the Mirror last week, on the state of Britain and the bloody mess we're in . If you've not seen it already, then I'd urge you to take a look now, because it is a wonderful snapshot of how a nation has turned itself into one big celebrity-obsessed, reality-tv show.

The two are inexorably linked. Ferguson blamed players' agents for treating them as children, shielding them from performing even basic tasks on their own, and in the process stopping them from thinking for themselves.

He blamed us, too, the media, for the way in which we've turned them into untouchable stars: glamorous, distant figures whose natural place is now in the showbiz columns rather than the back pages. As with most football-related things, he's right. As depressing as that is.

Every week since August, I have attended press conferences on Merseyside, where the Liverpool and Everton managers have stood in front of the media to explain their failings, as their teams have slipped down the table and gone on winless runs that have threatened to alert the club historians.

Every week, without fail, Rafa Benitez and David Moyes have stood in front of us and taken full responsibility for the bad results and the poor performances, and every week they have searched desperately to find excuses that don't implicate their players. Indeed, quite often, they end up praising those players for their hard work in trying to turn things around.

Not once in that time has a player attended the press conference and taken any responsibility for the mess they have created. Not once has a player come out to the press - where the questions are far more searching that the whitewash of TV - held his hands up and taken the blame, or offered any suggestion where they might change things.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent one of the most depressing hours of my life, standing in the rain at Anfield, waiting for the Liverpool players to explain their performance against Manchester City, when they contrived to throw away a winning position, in a crucial game.

One by one they filed past, refusing to look in the direction of the handful of newspaper and radio guys huddled together in the corner of the stadium. One by one, they pretended to be on mobile phones or in deep conversation with friends. One by one they refused to speak about what had just happened. One by one, they refused to take responsibility.

It was pathetic, one of the most depressing sights I have ever witnessed. Some of them even got hostile when asked for a few measly words, as though it was an outrage they were being requested to stop. One even got aggressive because apparently, he he didn't like what a journalist in London had once written about him.

Only one actually spoke, and then only for a few seconds, because he had people waiting. These are players who earn millions of pounds a year to be the best there is, to perform at the highest level, and understand the responsibility of that position. Hardly any of them do any more.

Ferguson lamented the development. "They're less ready to hold their hands up. If you go back several years, they were less protected so they could come in and hold their hands up, and say 'it was my fault'," he explained to the League Manager's Association.

"It's a different player character we've got today. Today they're very protected, more fragile than ever, and that's a lot to do with the type of people who protect them."

The very money that should demand they take responsibility, seems to place them above the idea of taking responsibility. The huge wages paid by the fans which should demand they are directly responsible to those fans, seems to preclude them from speaking to those fans.

There are exceptions, it has to be stressed. At Liverpool, the likes of Dirk Kuyt - you'll be unsurprised to hear - and Jamie Carragher have repeatedly put their hands up this season and taken it on the chin, both accepting that performances haven't been good enough.

But as Ferguson points out, that number is reducing all the time. And it's because we - and the media have to take responsibility here - have allowed them to believe that their celebrity status is enough, it is enough for them to be revered and admired for their talent, without having to take any responsibility for that talent.

Such an attitude is illustrated magnificently by those players who blindly believe they have a right to be in the side, without recognising the simple fact that they actually have to play well to earn that right.

Ryan Babel criticised his manager, his teammates and his club because he hasn't been playing for Liverpool enough. In his tantrum he suggested that he would have to leave Anfield. This is the same player who on the form he has shown when he has actually played, wouldn't get in the Blackpool team, never mind the Liverpool team. You couldn't make it up.

There is such a massive disconnection now, from the responsibility of playing well and achieving, that many players simply don't understand it is down to them at all, and that is what Ferguson was implying. Players don't have to play well any more, because when they don't, it is the managers who take the flak. They don't have to play well any more, because it is always someone else's fault.

Perhaps that is something Benitez should examine, the next time he wearily tries to answer the criticism levelled at him that should be shared by his team, but never is. Perhaps he should send one of his players out instead.

It struck me that the lack of responsibility Liverpool's players displayed after the game against Manchester City, was an echo of what happened on the pitch beforehand, when they seemed to lack the character to take the victory that was rightfully theirs. And that is what Ferguson fears will be the future.

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