Football, Racism and Swearing

The UK court action against John Terry, brought by Anton Ferdinand, finished during the past week. For those living in another country, this action was brought because extremely abusive swearing and racist language was alleged to have been said by one against the other on the football field. One man is white, the other black, but the court had to decide what was acceptable or unacceptable regarding the language used. There was no doubt about the words, tone and attitude used. That was not in dispute. The whole incident was caught on camera, and expert lip readers were brought in to confirm what everybody already knew. Terry was charged with using verbally abusive and racist language against Ferdinand. The court case centred around the words ‘w**te’ and ‘b**ck’. Apparently the use of hard swearing is ok, but not when used to sandwich the other words we are not allowed to mention. Beam me up Scotty, I have had enough legal nonsense down here! When did common sense die, and what is going to happen to the family side of the game of football?

We, in the UK, have a strange legal system. A very complicated defence was used to show that one was only repeating what he thought had already been said to him earlier, and for that basic reason Terry was acquitted. I know of no one who thinks justice was served. A very technical piece of law was used and someone who should have been punished on the grounds of common decency alone (never mind morality or racism) walked free to do it all over again, and more importantly, influence our youth.

We try to give our children a good moral guide, and we trust those in some kind of public standing to help, but no! It seems that the higher up the sports celebrity ladder you get, the rules don’t apply. The same is true of people with lots of money to engage an expensive lawyer, or even teams of lawyers. I suppose my question boils down to this: Are we willing to allow our youngster’s minds to be polluted by gutter language, just because it comes from the mouth of a rich unprincipled, immoral, unethical, racist man, even if he is a rich sports  celebrity?

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Ephesians 4:29,30 NKJV