Mutu Ado About Nothing

So, where are we all on the Mutu affair? For anyone who is interested, a 25 year old footballer who admitted taking recreational drugs has been sacked by his club (big spending Chelsea) and is probably going to be sued by them for loss of a potential transfer fee.
Why didn’t they support him? When Arsenal supported the oft steaming/drunk driving Tony Adams a few years back, they were rewarded with the backbone of a double winning side, the player was allowed to wrest back his dignity and good name from the jaws of ignominy and Adams has now gone on to become a respected figure in the game. Adams now runs an addiction charity for addict sports stars and must be up in arms about the way Mutu is being treated.

Lets get the first thing right, he never tried to cheat at football. He took drugs like millions of people his age do as part of his recreational life.

The follow up point a lot of people have been making to this has been that as a footballer, he is a role model to children and therefore should exhibit only completely above board, exemplary behavior.
What a crock of hypocritical shite that is. As adults, we should all be examples to children and we certainly shouldn’t be foisting the job off on a group of entertainers. This blanket, knee jerk bullshit about drugs has to stop, it’s fucking ridiculous. Practically everyone does drugs if you count alcohol and why shouldn’t you count alcohol? It’s a drug. To hear someone like Chick Young, a guy who wallows in his reputation as “a bit of a lad” (a bit of a fucking tit more like) slam Mutu makes me sick to my stomach.

We are now in a ridiculous situation with drugs. It’s the same kind of blanket “well, thems the rules” crap you get regarding porn, where people caught downloading it are instantly sacked by other people who dishonestly pretend they have never looked at pictures of people fucking in their lives.

Everyone knows that everyone else is on something – the trick is not to get caught or at least not to get in trouble with it. This means that a drunk or a drug user who has become adept at hiding their problem gets deeper and deeper into the hole, often endangering their co-workers in the process while those who are caught and forced to confront their addictions are denied help exactly when they need it the most.

And my other point? Doing a few lines of coke ain’t the worst thing you can do in life. It should not be treated as such and getting into trouble with drugs shouldn’t cost you your livelihood. As I’ve said before, until we get past the hypocrisy of condemning people whose only crime has been to get caught doing something we all do we will never tackle the genuine problems drugs cause, either in sport or more importantly among people in general.