Not sure why I'm sharing this but my son got sin binned on Saturday for swearing during a rugby match - not directly at the referee but at one of his regular stoppages. He then got a mouthful from the coach for letting the side down.

The RFU's policy of not tolerating swearing on the pitch and all communication with the referee through the captain is one that the FA should consider.

I didn't know about this Mr Beach. It is a marvelous idea in every way. Those jumped up, childish millionaires could do with the humility lessons.

is unnecessary in sport but habitual. It is directly related to a lack of respect for the officials and other competitors. My U12's team played on Sunday and the ref was poor. Ineffectual, ignored lots of foul throws (from the opposition - we work on them in training) and then gave a penalty for a dubious foul outside the area. Even the opposition parents were bewildered. But, and here is the but, my lads didn't react - they got on with the game.

That is how it should be.

sick with an organisation that punishes players for swearing and managers for criticising referees while refusing to adapt new technology or use video evidence to stamp out (no pun intended) violent play that went unoticed or insufficiently punished during a game.

Taking another example from rugby, soccer would do well to appoint citing officers who can bring charges against players for offences not noticed during the game.

and Ronney only has himself to blame. After letting him get away with his assault at Wigan they were unlikely let him get away with something again.

If it was any other player, he probably would have just got a warning, but Rooney has previous where being gobby into the camera is concerned and he can't really have any complaints.

It's hardly a world shattering revelation is it? What a load of fuss about nothing. Here's a suggestion - keep television cameras away from the pitch back in the stand where they belong. That way we can all get back to lip reading

Is the issue:
Banning for swearing is too harsh?
Or in relation to other offences, this is the wrong place to start?

Because I think you can get to two different answers.

Sportsmen swear. That's no surprise. I can't, in recent memory, remember another sportsman doing anything similar. There is no excuse for it. And I think it's also one reason that he isn't truly world class. Complete absence of self control and ability to use anything than his lizard brain.
He has to remember that he's part of a "product" - and what he did isn't really part of the product brand.

Is it the wrong place to start? Not necessarily. It's a little like zero tolerance as implemented in New York. if you tidy up this one little piece here, it becomes easier to then deal with the other issues - abuse of match officials etc.

Interestingly, the RFU publishes all the outcomes of its disciplinary hearings. The FA would be well advised to do the same. I believe there is, as I have referenced, elsewhere, something rotten in football culture. I wish I knew the fix, but I don't. But respect and self discipline would be two great values to start to instill everywhere.

Try to imagine Roger Federar doing that. Or Jensen Button. Or Chris Hoy. Or Johnny Wilkinson. Their governing bodies would throw the book at them.

Why should football be any different?

that these oafs have a lot to learn from the more dignified professional rugby union approach. Compare and contrast - Rooney scores a goal, should be happy and swears like a petulant child; Brian O'Driscoll and the rest of the Ireland team get on with the game after Wales had scored an obviously illegal try in the recent 6 nations game. Rugby union isn't made up of angels but they damn well respect the referee and a team loses out if players are sin binned.

... Man Utd fans get two games off from having to pretend to like him.

It's clearly not a particularly well thought through or consistent move from the FA (will wonders never cease), but I suppose the alternative was to let one of the most high profile players on the English game swear directly into a tv camera while virtually making eye contact with the viewer and do nothing, which doesn't seem particularly desirable either, does it?

Some of the arguments in the papers in support of Rooney have been extraordinary:

(i) it's sport, people swear. Indeed they do, but I've never in all my years of watching and playing football seen a player eyeball the camera from a yard away and bellow an obscenity directly at it. This is a sport where you get booked for taking your shirt off on celebration (a truly mad rule), so it's not unreasonable to attempt to watch it on tv without being told to eff off by one of the nation's most overindulged human beings;

(ii) it's only because it's Rooney. Riiiiiight. I think you need to be uniquely paranoid to believe that the officials are out to get Rooney. I can't think of a player who's lead a more charmed life in terms of the discretion of the refs, and it's telling that, deprived of the kind of doting tolerance he's received in England throughout his career, he becomes a disaster waiting to happen every time he pulls on an England shirt away from Wembley; and

(iii) it's part of his natural passion. If you take it away he'd be half the player. Again, the same doe eyed nonsense you expect a parent to spout about the five year old delinquent they're refusing to discipline. Rooney would almost certainly be a better player if he learned to curb his anger - he'd stop picking up daft yellow cards for one thing (see his last England performance). Interestingly, I never hear people telling me that Joey Barton has become a worse player since he calmed down a bit, quite the opposite in fact. And if this really is true, maybe we should stop booking him entirely? Just let him so whatever he wants out there? Presumably, we'd all reap the benefits of unshackling his muse come the next world cup?

So, in summary, the FA can't tell arse from elbow, but a bit of a slapped wrist is long overdue for "Wazza", a player who, quite frankly, makes me ashamed every time he pulls on an England shirt and doesn't deserve to be in the same sport (let alone on the same pitch) as the likes of Giggs and Scholes.

At 4.30 minutes.

I was a massive Leeds fan as a kid in the 70's, but now I'm just bored by it. It's not even that I dislike the game; it just bores me. Which seems somehow worse.

.. Rooney's actions. I think he's been a knob. I do understand them though.

He deserved a ban for the elbow.

He deserved a packed suitcase & a lift to the nearest train station for the transfer request.

However you want view it, the lad is not a saint. I don't think he thinks he is either. What I do take into consideration is that for the preceding 70 mins (and for 50% of the games he plays - whether he deserves it or not) he has had a large portion of the crowd singing shouting variations of the following:-

- Rooney you fat c**t
- Rooney you fat granny shagging c**t
- Rooney you ugly fat granny shagging c**t
- Your birds' a slapper & she takes it up the shi**er
and various other variations of the same theme. At points during the game he will be less then a meter away from someone shouting this directly at him. This abuse is extremely clear to everyone in the ground - but no-one watching on TV because the crowd sound is manipulated to censor that sort of stuff into a muffle.

The amount of money earned does not increase your tolerance to absorb this - the fact that it's his fault is bye the bye. Anyone says that i'd take the abuse for a squillion quid a week - bollocks. It would get you down eventually - yep it's worse at the ground - but every single place, apart from in your own home, someone is have a snidy pop. Everytime you have a pint with your mate - theres a bloke round the corner talking just so you can hear, calling you a fat cu*t all night. I'm sure Jesus of Nazareth is a hidden member of the massive - but there's only one of him the rest of us are mortals. He's had 10 years of it. This year has been the "piece of resistance" of shitty years (again mostly self inflicted).

So, he's had the dogs abuse for 70 mins - he's scored a "true" hatrick - ie without reply from West Ham. He brought the title challenge back on track. He's wound up and isn't the most articulate of people. Some sky camera man runs up and sticks a camera right in his face (he didn't run to the camera) and he lets off some steam. Some of which includes swear words - well thats a bloody shocker.

Does it deserve a two game ban - no. Thats ridiculous. If you want to start making a stand - do it at the start of the season and make everyone aware of the law and the consequences.

Finally - if we are holding up any premiership footballers as role models - then I question whether we (including myself) as parents are actually fulfilling our roles sufficiently.

.....that more represents England in 2011?

Wayne Rooney is the embodiment of being ugly, bad clothes, greed, bad music, being naturally thick (not helped by having a dire education), rubbish food, a juvenile obsession with computer games/mobile phones, etc etc etc etc etc..............
If he wasn't at Man. Utd. plc, he'd be in the Scrubs XI.
And yet Man. Utd. plc, and their charmless team manager, condone all of it.

I would love to hear what Sir Bobby Charlton (the embodiment of England in its most successful era) REALLY thinks.

I know nothing of football and actually hate it quite viscerally for many reasons too tedious to recount just now.

But as far as I can see, over time Wayne Rooney has come to represent more than just someone who is good at football. He's gone from "talented, working class boy wonder made good," to "symbol of everything which is wrong about contemporary England" in record time. In a very blunt way I have no sympathy. Surely someone as gifted a him from his background just needs to visit some of his own relatives to know how easily his life could have been blighted by poverty and lack of opportunity?

And yet I also think that, given that he plainly doesn't have two brain cells to rub together and has spent most of his life hothoused in the world of football, surely his clubs (or his agent) could have done something more to protect him from himself? Shouldn't football clubs be running something like Motown's finishing school to arm some of their not too bright employees with personal skills which can prevent them from needlessly being harangued by the media because of their own idiotic behaviour?

Perhaps I should start a business. "The Ganglesprocket Finishing School For Talented Errant Chav Would Be Footballers Who Need Instruction On Basic Social Graces And Manners."

It must have been nice for all the ABU's here to have a free shot at their bete noire.

"I'm not a role model... Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids."
Charles Barkley

But that c-word was completely artistically justified as it was describing the words of someone hateful. Even Steven Fry has dropped the odd c-bomb.

What was Peter Crouch Thinking Of last night ?

I remember Joe Cole getting sent off for Liverpool against Arsenal for a similar sort of challenge, Crouch did it twice and deserved to get sent off as Ray Wilkins kept saying stay on your feet,that effectively gave the game to Real Madrid

It must look like someone's chucking a handful of discarded wire coat-hangers at you.