Time to end this hypocrisy

Danny Welbeck profited from some atrocious defending by Antonio Valencia to score the winner for Arsenal in last Monday’s FA Cup clash with former club Man United. Hardly had the game been over before a flurry of angry, self-righteous Man United fans flooded cyberspace to condemn Welbeck’s ‘lack of class’ and loyalty in celebrating a goal that put his boyhood team out of the FA Cup.

The poor boy even reportedly got death threats not only because he scored but because he had the temerity to celebrate the goal with his teammates.

One fan wrote: “Danny Welbeck. I will find you and I will kill you.”

Another added: “Somebody just KILL Welbeck! Can’t stand the a**hole! #RedOrDead #MUFC .”

While yet another alleged United fan posted: “Oh shoot Danny Welbeck. Shouldn’t have scored!!!! I HATE YOUUUUUU.”

UtdMads wrote: “Welbeck you c*** celebrating. You are so DEAD to me! F***ING JUDAS.”

GrandeDeGea said: “Hey Welbeck, when you die, I will celebrate it in front of your family.”

Another so-called supporter added: “Hope Welbeck breaks his f****** leg and can’t play ever again f****** judas c***.”

In the end, the poor boy had to come out with a statement about how much it hurt him to score against Man United.

It would have been amusing but for the fact that it was so annoying.

Then last Wednesday, after he had helped PSG bundle out Chelsea from the Champions League in what I considered to be one of his best ever performances as a player, David Luiz was also forced to ‘apologize’ for scoring against his former team. Are you kidding me?
 

Like Welbeck two days before him, Luiz also had to apologise for scoring a goal that killed off Chelsea’s dream of progressing in the UEFA Champions League.

The Brazilian said: “It was good for me to score. I said before the game that I won’t celebrate but there was so much emotion that I could not control (it) and so I’m sorry because I celebrated because of the emotion but I am so happy to qualify.’

Pray, tell me, when and how did it become a sin to celebrate scoring a goal for the team which pays your wages and guarantees your career progression? What if the goal was against the team that moulded you as a player?

Even if it was against the team communally owned by my village people, I’m of the opinion that a player’s loyalty is first to the club that currently pays his wages and, as much as it is desirable to respect old affiliations, I think it is unfair to subject people to the kind of unconscionable cruelty that Welbeck had to go through simply because he scored against his former team.

I’m not even ready to discuss the circumstances surrounding his departure from the club. This was a club he had supported as a child and dreamt of playing for all his life because he grew up in the Manchester area. Last summer, a new manager came in, declared him surplus to requirement and promptly sold him off to a rival team for a tidy sum of £16m.

One, Welbeck didn’t ask to be sold. Two, in all his years at United, nobody ever accused him of giving less than his talent suggested and while I do not regard him as highly as Arsene Wenger who paid such a huge amount for him, I certainly recognize his right to do as he well damned please whenever he played against any team, United inclusive.

Perhaps, what does duck-heads who sent him death threats should have done was to ask the club to insert a clause in his sell-on contract that he cannot play against United for the rest of his career. That way, I think, they’ll rest assured that he cannot score a goal against their club, let alone celebrating the goal.

And talking about celebrating after scoring, I’m of the opinion that scoring a goal brings an immediate happy emotion which is instinctive and not subject to control. Like Luiz said, most times you’re seized by the moment and don’t know when you get carried away especially if you’d borne the brunt of some shellacking from the same fans who will turn around to demand that you don’t celebrate against them if you score but will not spare you all game long. What sense do you make of that?
 

History is replete with players who have made moves away from clubs only to come back to haunt such clubs. For clarity, let’s take a few examples.

I recall the Emmanuel Adebayor incident when Arsenal fans pilloried him all through the game when he was at Man City, subjecting him to boos and jeers with his every touch of the ball. The fans mocked his parents while his ex-teammates refused to shake hands in the tunnel prior to the game. Fortuitously, he got a goal and, to rub it in the face of the Arsenal fans, he ran almost the length of the pitch to celebrate.

He later explained: “I guess it was the way I felt treated that made me react the way I did after scoring that goal. I did feel very hurt. I had been so excited to play against my old team-mates, but they didn’t want to shake my hand in the tunnel and then I heard the fans singing about my parents.

“After that, I had no choice. I can’t go into the crowd with them and start shouting, so I thought the best response would be to score. Luckily, I managed to do just that and then the emotions took over, although I had calmed down before I got to them. It was just my way of saying, ‘You let me go. See, I am not as terrible a player as you thought I was!“

Can you beat that?

Agreed Adebayor could have handled things better but, like Harry Redknapp said in his defence at the time, when you spend all day abusing his parents and calling him names, you leave him no choice but to fight back.
 

 

Compare his case with that of Robin van Persie who was sold for £24m and actually showed respect to Arsenal fans and the club by not celebrating despite scoring against them for new club Man United.

Van Persie faced Arsenal at Old Trafford three months after changing clubs and, unsurprisingly, he was met with abuse from the away end and his every touch was booed. Still, when he put United 1-0 up after three minutes, he refused to celebrate.

Five months later, at the Emirates, he scored again and refused to celebrate yet the abuse from the terraces was louder than ever. The following season, he scored in his third straight game against Arsenal and, because the boo-boys refused to get off his back, he went up to celebrate with United supporters. Do you, in good conscience, blame him for that?

You can also take the case of Cristiano Ronaldo who left United for Real Madrid in a humongous £80m transfer. Since his move in 2009, CR7 has met and scored against Man United twice but he has refused to celebrate even when his goal eliminated the Red Devils from the Champions League last season.
 

And what do you make of Alexandre Song who came up against old side Arsenal at Upton Park last December and scored a peach of a goal which was, according to television replay, was incorrectly ruled out by the centre referee. Nevertheless, Song refused to celebrate even before the goal was chalked off.

The Ronaldo and Song examples go to clarify my point that whether a player chose to celebrate or not is entirely due to them and we should stop demonizing those who chose not to simply because they don’t conform to our warped worldview.

 

The moment a player moves from club A to B, his loyalty automatically transfers to the new club which pays his wages. He could have affections for the previous club due to some romanticized memories which he still holds very dear to his heart but compelling players to show loyalty and life-long devotion to a club which didn’t think twice before pawning him off to the highest bidder is not only unfair, it is also cruel, barbaric and a violation of his rights as a human being.

This hypocrisy must stop today.

March 16, 2015