By Subendran Ravindran,
What a difference a week can make about a week or two ago, United were crowned BPL Champions, after that the Ryan Giggs scandal broke out and they were totally outclassed in the Champions League Final against Barcelona losing 3-1 in the final. Giggs was not himself in the final, it is still too earl to say if he was affected by this scandal with model Imogen Thomas, but to make it worse she was not the only one. The most decorated player in the history of the English and Premier league will now get a chance to cool off with a nice summer holiday. Sir Alex will be glad that this happened at the very end of the season and not early in the season.
Should this affect Giggs to be knighted? Many players have done worse things off the field, what seems diabolical about this is actually what the public and media thought about him, we painted this picture, this perception of Giggs being the ultimate “nice” guy, and now when we find out he is not we crucify him. Giggs did not ask for this, he did not punch somebody in public, he did not steal a teammate’s wife or somebody’s wife (hopefully), but he did cheat on his wife, but should that be our business?
We only pay the ticket money to watch him play and we can choose to judge and react when he plays badly or well on the field. Off the field it is not our business what he does, I can understand the judge gagging the newspaper from printing stories about Giggs, why? every girl it seems now sleeps with a player knowing they can sell the story to the tabloids, this has gone too far and in this sense the judge is right, but where does this gagging end? Granted a professional athlete has responsibility to his public, but how far does this stretch?
The knighthood issue is now in the spotlight, Rooney said that Giggs should be knighted only a few weeks ago before the scandal broke out, the issue of morality is blurred now, Sir Elton John was knighted despite him being gay, is that morally correct? For some people it is not, but he did not cheat on his lover or partner-as far we know- so that is morally correct.despite him being gay right? It is certainly not our business so why should Giggs issue be any different? None of them actually committed a crime, though for Giggs’ wife it would be of course, but this is all about privacy.
I am not here to discuss about the freedom of speech and the ramifications of Twitter account, but in the age of the internet it is getting harder and suddenly everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and now talking about Paul Scholes being an example to the public, but what happens when we find out that he has a scandal too (hopefully not)? So now it gets interesting should both be knighted? Or should Scholes be knighted when he retires for his exemplary behavior?
Spare a thought too for Imogen Thomas who is also a victim in this and we should not take it for granted that she was going to sell her story. They might be many girls willing to do that, but some are truly innocent..
Sir Alex said that Giggs can go on for another season or two, what will happen now? Will he retire because of this? Clearly Giggs can contribute to United’s cause for a season or two, Sir Alex has to come to the aid of his favorite player and it will take all his experience to handle yet another crisis at United since the Eric Cantona kung-Fu kick, Roy Keane’s rant at MUTV and Rio Ferdinand’s non-showing for his drug test.
