Cole is a pleb, Arsenal must be laughing these days.

by gerald mclaughlin

sportingo

Yes, footballers should be conscious of how they portray themselves not just on the football field but in the public eye in general. Large amounts of money exchange hands between photographers and glossy gossip magazines which in turn produce juicy scandals that the British public love to read about.

It's big business. The British psyche at the moment is being influenced by demand and circumstance. The nation's own insecurities, brought about through the reading of others, has had a snowball effect. It makes each and every one of us feel slightly better about ourself if we read or see the rich celebrities' own lives in complete tatters.

It's a sick roundabout that none of us can jump off. Yet it was we who created it. It was of our own doing. Role models in our most popular and favourite sports are few and far between. They are there, of course - it's just that we do not want to pay money to read or watch good deeds.

It doesn't sell newspapers. We would much rather pick up the Sunday papers to read about Ashley Cole's stupidity in the marriage stakes than Tony Adams' and Paul Merson's recoveries from addictions

We should have watched American society go downhill big-time and made sure that we didn't follow the same path. It's too late. Britain is a financial and social disaster area on the verge of anarchy. I get more frightened if i see a group of 15-year-olds walking towards me than I would a group of 30-somethings. That never used to be the case.

To ask a footballer to remain a complete angel throughout his career is like asking a dog not to eat that sausage you placed in front of its nose. There are bad eggs in every walk of life. It's not the modern-day footballer's fault that kids are a bit confused as to who to look up to. Footballers as a whole are very good role models. It's just that their every move is scrutinised and analysed by a greedy, money-making machine called the media.

I think footballers get very unfair treatment by the media. Kids do look up to them. If only it was the football and the training and good work many of them do for charities that hit the front pages rather than Rooney's alleged dating preferences or Cole's inability to keep his trousers up, we would be better off.

Footballers and sports people in general are OK and their good sides should be portrayed in a better light by the main cause of social chaos - the media.

sports people in general can't sneeze without appearing in newspapers anyway, 99 % behave but there's always the odd one that is a bad apple