Newsgroup: it.sport.calcio
Titolo: Ancora su Zidane e sul precedente creato

His chestbutt was excusable. Lots of people do stupid things when they're 
angry. And if he'd simply apologised for losing and misusing his head and 
accepted his punishment, Zinédine Zidane could have been forgiven. But 
instead he decided to play the victim and, in doing so, has cheapened the 
legacy of one of the game's greatest ever players: himself.
Throughout his sparkling career, Zidane has been hailed for his humility. 
We've constantly been told that he's just a timid family man who's never let 
success swell his ego and never forgotten where he came from. But his 
behaviour since the World Cup final has been disingenuous and self-serving, 
suggesting that this supposedly modest hero puts his own pride before the 
good of the game that made him.
Zidane complained that Marco Materazzi insulted him and should be punished. 
He stressed that the insults were not racist, religious or political. In 
other words, they were the sort of playground taunts that have been heard in 
every sporting contest at every level since the dawn of time. Zidane has 
surely been on the receiving end of such insults throughout his life and 
career; and it would be incredible if the 34-year-old has himself never 
taunted or insulted an opponent. Indeed, it has been widely reported that he 
called referee Jorge Larrionda a "son of a bitch" during France's semi-final 
win over Portugal. In football, such vacuous insults have rarely been taken 
seriously, certainly not when between two players - they've merely been 
treated as relatively harmless valves through which players vent 
frustration, or crude ways of winding up adversaries. So did a dunderhead 
like Materazzi really manage to concoct a jibe so extraordinarily disturbing 
that it justified Zidane's attack and his demand for Fifa to take 
unprecedented action?
Or is Zidane simply too proud to admit that the pressure and emotion of the 
World Cup final and his last ever game led him to make a big drama out of 
the most humdrum of happenings? Is he arrogant enough to try to fool the 
world into believing that he, who had previously accumulated 13 red cards in 
his career, is of such impeccable moral fibre and professional rectitude 
that it would have taken something unimaginably heinous to blur his focus? 
Well, insofar as it prompted silly Fifa to retrospectively impose a two-game 
ban on Materazzi, Zizou's selfish ruse has worked.
Indeed, such is Zidane's mystique that he even managed to convince the 
French Football Federation to contradict themselves and speak to Fifa in his 
defence. This is the same FFF that last year appealed against one of its own 
disciplinary committee's decisions after Fabien Barthez, who had spat on a 
referee during a friendly, was dealt with leniently after explaining he was 
provoked. The FFF insisted the goalkeeper serve at least a six-month ban. 
The word 'hypocrisy' must be featuring heavily in Barthez's conversations 
tonight.
As for Fifa, now that they've been hoodwinked into declaring that swearing 
at someone is only marginally less objectionable than physically assaulting 
them and should be punished even if the referee doesn't hear it, how does 
the world governing body propose to eradicate harsh language? By making 
every player wear a microphone during matches and employing a squadron of 
eavesdroppers to monitor their utterances? If so, which jibes merit a yellow 
card and which deserve red? For how many games will a player be suspended 
for insulting an opponent's sister as opposed to, say, his cousin?
Conniving Zidane handed Fifa a jagged can-opener, and the clowns have 
released the worms.
http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1825400,00.html
* * *
IMO tutta questa storia gli si ritorcerą contro: a lui, a Blatter, 
all'Adidas...
-- 
KM 

 all'Adidas...
Fanno quadrato, la forza delle lobbies.
-- 
"Ci sono due cose che non si possono fare oggi, 
far pagare a chi non ha soldi e spiegare ad un asino che è un asino"