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 Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 6:07 am Post subject: Jermaine Defoe |
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Why I'm gnashing my teeth and down in the mouth over light-hearted response to the Defoe bite scandal
So what should we call them now, Tetanus Hotspur? Do visiting teams need to consider wearing bulbs of garlic and silver crucifixes for added protection when they arrive at White Hart Lane?
Certainly after last season's so-called dodgy lasagne controversy, you would hope Spurs players might think twice before tucking into undercooked meat again.
Forgive me, it's just what Martin Jol would call "a comical nibble". Because, in his eyes, this is all one big joke, a laugh for us all to enjoy.
When an international player bites an opponent in front of thousands in the ground and a couple of million more on television, he isn't shocked or dismayed. He sees it as an invitation to chuckle at the madcap eccentricity of life.
Now look at the picture of Jermain Defoe imbedding his teeth into Javier Mascherano's shoulder and tell me where the comedy is?
It's funny peculiar, I grant you, but not funny ha-ha. Tommy Cooper makes me smile; real-life Hannibal Lecters don't gnaw on my funny bone.
But, as so often in football, the laughs come thick and fast later and it was hard to keep a straight face as wannabe carnivore Defoe began offering up excuses a vegetable would have been ashamed of, complaining everyone was making a meal of it — the incident, that is, not Mascherano's shoulder.
"It's been blown out of all proportion," he moaned. "I reacted in a bit of a mischievous way; my character is a little like that at times."
You see? He's just a playful puppy, nipping a playmate in high spirits. Outbreaks of idiocy on this scale make the great national game what it is today; a compelling circus of ridiculous behaviour and preposterous excuses.
You could only howl at the moon as Defoe's statement pointedly avoided apologising. It didn't even contain a meaningful expression of regret, beyond a grudging acceptance that the incident "didn't look great on television".
Funny that.
Who would have thought imbedding your teeth into another player would present a slightly less-than-flattering image to the world?
But this interview with a vampire wasn't finished. He claimed: "The referee was standing over me. If he felt I had done something bad he would have sent me off."
Something bad? I'm just surprised match official Steve Bennett didn't forget the yellow card and whip out a mallet, a wooden stake and some Holy Water, instead.
However, Jol was the real joker. After warming up the audience with his "comical nibble" gambit, he delivered his killer punchline. "It's a part of the game," he said.
Now, Jol is blessed with a lantern jaw that could inflict the kind of bite a great white shark would be proud of, so I hesitate to criticise him too severely in case he tries to give me a "comical" chew that dispatches me to casualty.
But can someone tell me what game this is meant to be a part of? Where in the rules does it state that munching on another player's body parts is an acceptable tactic, or even an infringement so commonplace that authorities routinely turn a blind eye to the offence?
Shirt-pulling, diving, encroaching at free -kicks, disputing referees' decisions, I can see how these petty antics could be airily dismissed as "a part of the game".
But biting? They don't allow that in the boxing ring; it's not even considered comical in the front row of a scrum.
Let's also dispose with the oft-repeated mantra that spitting at an opponent is "the worst thing a player can do to a fellow professional".
Personally, I'd rather take my chances with a flying blob of saliva than look down at my arm and find someone enjoying their entrée of Kelly tartare.
But here's the best joke of all. Apparently FIFA regulations state Defoe cannot be punished retrospectively, because the referee has already booked him for the offence during the match. Now that really is comical.
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