“They’re Patrick fooking Cox, man"

It is rare that a disciplinary issue involving a footballer at one high-profile club can generate support amongst fans of other clubs but the reaction to Wayne Rooney’s outburst has been both surprising, and inspiring. Some fans have cited Didier Drogba’s ban in June, 2009 following the game as setting the precedent that should be the basis for the punishment – Manchester City fans well represented and some Chelsea fans, still justifiably disgruntled at being an absolute victim on that night in general.

Some individuals have been particularly vociferous in registering their disgust; the paper that employs Richard Littlejohn [The Daily Mail] has been one and their own Head of Sport, Lee Clayton, clumsily commented on Monday: “Why are United fans so angry for Rooney? He wanted to join Man City earlier in the season until he got a rise. Didn't care about you then.”

When journalists argue with limited constructivism, it is easy to see why the entire football pyramid suspects their own club may receive vexatious treatment, at one time or another. But journalists, in the main, have rallied behind the striker, or rather, against the severity of the punishment.

For the record, it is true that Wayne Rooney should have received a ban for his elbowing of James McArthy during the Wigan fixture. Indeed, conspiracy theorists would argue that the player is being punished for the right reasons, but for the wrong incident; although, he is not the only player to avoid punishment for a high-profile incident that warranted it.

To his credit, Gordon Taylor, the head of the PFA, commented: “It [foul and abusive language] becomes an issue when directed towards match officials. However, when used in a spontaneous way in celebration or frustration then it is not normally expected to merit a sanction."

It would seem both irrelevant to the argument and akin to poking a person with a stick, to over-analyse Rooney’s psychology at this juncture - some parties have asserted their belief that he was swearing at the nation. But, in truth, the player just seemed like a prematurely bald-man finally capitulating at the prospect of yet another day with the world holding up a mirror to his increasingly long face; somebody who wants to play football to his fullest capacities, after an annus horribilis that only fame and money can buy.

Most football supporters accept the reality of the human side of players in the game – and “hubris” is such an apt term, applicable to so many, that it could be translated into Latin and used as the Premier League motto. But it should be reiterated that the United and England player is a fully paid-up member of our society, without a criminal record, as indeed are the vast majority of his fellow pros.

A pervading argument has been that the grass-roots of the game will only begin to reflect the FA’s Respect campaign, once a high-profile name is punished. There is inevitably some truth in this but that does not make it either appropriate or moral to make an example of one person – the greater good was an ideologue attributed to the most infamous villain of the last century, and it is the same logic that led the inhabitants of Kong Island to sacrifice buxom wenches in a bid to keep a one-hundred and fifty foot Gorilla satiated.

In regards to 150 feet of Gorilla, when Sky Sports News suggested to Mark Ramprakash on Monday that: “In cricket, he’d [Rooney] be banned for a season wouldn’t he?” they spectacularly missed the point.

Football isn’t cricket, neither is it rugby, hockey, dressage or anything else other than what it is: the game Diego Maradona learnt to play in the slums of Villa Fiorito; the game that Zinedine Zidane learnt to play in the La Castellene region of Marseille, or Quartier Difficile, as locals call it; the game that Wayne Rooney learnt to play in the relatively notorious Croxteth part of Liverpool; that both Mario Balotelli and Ravel Morrison [two players who should have long and glittering futures] learnt in areas that many people would struggle to imagine - products of environments and educational  infrastructures that make them seem inexplicable when plunged into the media paradigm.

Football is, famously, the game that just needed a ball and jumpers for goalposts; where the only barrier to entry is meant to be ability. Of course, the world we live in evolves – see the dramatic leaps in democracy just these last few years, the stance against homophobia, against slavery, in technology; and football as a microcosm of the world should continue to reflect society.

It would still be hyperbole to describe the heart of our national game as “gentrified” or overtly intellectualised – a better term would be the “loosewomenification” of it. But perhaps this is a crossroads for the viewing public and for the game itself.

There are behavioural expectations on players, naturally and these should remain. The FA is also right to promote the Respect campaign. But the increasing sanitisation of our national sport is a road that marginalises a proportion of the country that, as unpalatable as it may seem, still see it as a route out of areas that many people would fear to tread.

The punishment seems the incongruity: did the language affect the game? And did the player bring it into worse disrepute than Marcelo did when celebrating Peter Crouch’s sending-off in the biggest night of his career? Furthermore, will there be differentiation between punishments for swearing pre- and post-watershed? If the issue is swearing into a camera at midday, is it okay to swear into a camera after 9pm? What if players swear in a foreign language?

To take the premise to an extreme: could it be possible that some players are forced out of the game, that we lose some of our most talented players because of a proclivity for bad language? The most obvious parallel to be drawn would be with boxers who fail a medical but continue to compete in unlicensed bouts.

Moreover, it was Shaun Ryder who infamously once said: “They’re Patrick fucking Cox man,” live on Channel Four. For which, the channel was punished; Ofcom fines are the staple in such issues, so why is football different?

A Sky source commented to me on Monday that “all broadcasters can do is take as many precautions as possible, some swearing is inevitable, but directors try and avoid it” – indeed and commonsense. But in that vein: why did their cameraman take a step onto a football pitch, beyond the white lines and put a camera into a player’s face, as the game hit its inevitable crescendo?

It is irrefutable that England’s national sport has been rejuvenated by Sky’s investment but it would be hilarious to argue that it was altruism; the accessibility of our national language affords our league a global reach beyond any other football federation and that is ignoring our own subscription fees. The overriding fear, though, is that rather than a case of TV fitting the game’s purpose, our game is on the precipice of morphing into something that has to be fit for TV. The apparent derogation of their duties and abrogation of the responsibilities suggests a case of “a tail starting to wag its dog”.

A balance must be struck and although Sky TV might not get what they feel is their divine right to the perfect money shot, the national game will still remain a sport for all, still picking talents from the melting-pools of life and consumers can continue to watch televised games without the increased fear of foul language.