Taking sport too seriously

Gary Speed was probably few people's absolute favourite footballer. But he would have been in many people's Top 5 or Top 10, admired by supporters of all the clubs he played for and loved by his countrymen, and more importantly hated by no one. As a player he was for the most part unspectacular, a surging midfielder in his early years, he sat deeper as his career progressed, only embodying his surname while at Leeds United. He always had a sweet left foot and a good goal scoring ratio for a central midfielder, and was a notably good header of the ball. I once ranked him in the Top 10 players in the Premier League's history, but was, correctly, brought up on this. There have been too many other players who have excelled in the upper echelons, whereas Speed spent most of his career in the second tier of clubs, there and there abouts, but not champion material. Nevertheless, he was an outstanding international, and excellent for Newcastle United in their brief manifestation a

Right, very simply, one or both of those shitbags should be sacked, not just suspended. Gray might just get away with it, as everyone knows he's a piece of work and his job is just to comment rather than hold sway, and also, frankly, because what he said wasn't as bad; but Keys, really, this should be the end of the road for. How can he be accepted as a host and a figure of authority now? It's all very well making a crack about women not knowing the offside rule, which is just a dumb joke alongside "women drivers", but there's a seriousness and nastiness to what he was saying, a genuine bigotry. He seems to sincerely believe a woman is not up to the job of running the line - whereas there is literally nothing about being an assistant referee which a woman cannot do as well as a man. There are arguments to be had in other areas. Will attitudes prevent a woman from controlling a game fully as a referee? Likewise, will attitudes and whatever the subtle changing

Just a brief thought which is pretty obvious, really, but doesn't get said enough. What makes football, and also, to a lesser extent, rugby, so difficult to officiate as opposed to many other sports is how often the referee is expected, in making a judgement, to read intention. A player can be sent off or unpunished depending on what a referee believes, from what he sees his body do, is in his mind. At the speed at which football is played, bearing in mind we're talking quite often about actions carried out with the feet rather than the hands, this is an unreasonably difficult task.