The revenge of a sweet FA

As a frequent football watcher, I like to have fun with the solecisms peppering the speech of both players and commentators.

Just the other day, a random 10 minutes of commentary regaled me with a few choice examples. One player was accused of a “lacksidaisical attitude”, another of being “adverse” to defending, yet another was to be substituted “momentarily”.

It’s “lackadaisical” and “averse”, chaps, I thought maliciously. And “momentarily” means for a moment, not in a moment. Why, I went so far as accusing our football folk of being ignorant of, or at least insensitive to, the nuances of English.

Turns out I was wrong. Our football community, ably represented by the Football Association (known colloquially as ‘sweet FA’) has linguistic sensitivity in spades, if one may use this word without incurring censure or even prosecution.

In fact, it’s so sensitive to linguistic nuance that it has forced the resignation of its chairman, Greg Clarke, for using language carelessly, crassly and borderline criminally. If you have the stomach for it, here’s a short list of his transgressions.

First, he bewailed the abuse “high-profile coloured footballers… take on social media…”. The sentiment is unimpeachable, the choice of words isn’t. Mr Clarke ought to have known that the word ‘coloured’ is currently out of fashion.

It may come back in the future, but it hasn’t yet. The proper term is BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic), and Clarke should have been using it, while avoiding the idiotic levity of puns like ‘up your BAME’.

Some stick-in-the-mud tried to defend the culprit by citing the Duchess of Sussex, aka Meghan Markle, who once referred to herself as “a woman of colour”. However, it was correctly pointed to that troglodyte that ‘of colour’ is drastically different from ‘coloured’.

I must admit the fine distinction escapes me. Perhaps I should take a linguistic sensitivity course, if such a thing exists. I’m sure it must; can’t be without one.

And in any case, BAME persons may call themselves whatever they like. Why, black comedians even routinely refer to themselves by the word than which none more appalling exists in English or in any of the world’s other 6,500 languages. But that doesn’t give anyone, including Clarke, the licence to follow suit.

I wouldn’t blame you for screaming that you can’t take any more of this. But on the off-chance that you can, Mr Clarke also made an observation that’s so much more offensive for doubtless being correct:

“If you go to the IT department at the FA, there’s a lot more South Asians than there are Afro-Caribbeans. They have different career interests.” Excuse me?!?

I realise that Mr Clarke actually did the hiring at the FA. Hence one might think he’s in an ideal position to judge the relative numbers in question. However, one would be inexcusably wrong.

Physical facts mustn’t be allowed to compromise a higher metaphysical truth. And the higher metaphysical truth says that anyone who as much as hints at any behavioural or cognitive differences among races is a [TAKE YOUR PICK: racist, bigot, fascist, extremist, chauvinist, Donald Trump].

Clarke is clearly one or all of those things (except Donald Trump, that one is sui generis). A sacking alone is insufficient here – the Special Branch should hear about this. Especially considering that this fossil isn’t just racist but also sexist. This is what he said:

“I talked to a coach… and said, ‘what’s the issue with goalkeepers in the women’s game?’ She said, ‘young girls, when they take up the game (aged) six, seven, eight, just don’t like having the ball kicked at them hard’, right?”

Wrong, Mr Clark. Again a higher metaphysical truth should trump (if you’ll pardon the expression) any physical, or in this case medical, fact. A stickler for empirical knowledge may say that a hard shot striking a man’s chest may only cause mild discomfort, while the same shot striking a woman may cause breast cancer.

That ignores the higher truth that, just as there is no difference – as in none, zilch, nil, zippo – among the races, so there’s none among the sexes, all 74 of them. If some women have to die defending this unassailable proposition, then so be it.

Now, are you ready for this? Clarke isn’t just racist and sexist. He’s also a homophobe. Discussing the possibility of gay footballers openly admitting their sexuality, Clarke said, inter alia: “I’d like to believe and I do believe they would have the support of their mates in the changing room.”  

At first glance, you might think these words are inoffensive. But the current legal definition of an offence is anything taken as such by anyone else. Hence if some people think that Clarke is a homophobe on the strength of this statement, then that’s what he is. Off with his head.

Actually, that’s only a figure of speech, for the time being. All Clarke got was a sacking. He should count himself lucky, though I’m not sure about the rest of us.