Have you ever wondered how professional sports people can get away with physical violence on the pitch but if we, the public, do something like they do in public, we could be sent to jail? When an assault occurs on the pitch, for example a punch or a head butt, the worst a player will receive is a red card and would be sent off but for the rest of us we could end up with several months behind bars. Why is this so?
Is it fair that sporting government bodies, such as the Football Association (FA), the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and the English Cricket Board (ECB) are given control of punishment except in the most exceptional cases. Very few players have faced charges for physical abuse towards their opposition or their team mates but a few have. An example of this would be Joey Barton who attacked a former team mate leaving him “looking like the elephant man”.
The law states that players must acknowledge that there is a chance of them being injured when they sign a contract. This means that however badly they are hurt during the game it is deemed to be part of the game. This is reasonable but if a player gets brain damage or fractures their skull this should be considered more serious and shouldn’t be deemed ‘part of the game’. So all in all it is quite unfair that we are punished more harshly than professional sports people and this should be resolved to ensure a more suitable punishment for the professionals.