Valdano's shit hits the fan
Wednesday, May 9, 2007 
I'm a Chelsea fan (since 1967, I might add, when I was eight and Chelsea lost to Spurs 2-1 in the first all-London FA Cup final) but I couldn't help laughing when I read that Jorge Valdano, the former Real Madrid coach, had described the Champions League semi-final between Liverpool and Chelsea as like "a shit hanging from a stick". Valdano, a World Cup winner with Argentina, didn't mince his words:
"Football is made up of subjective feeling, of suggestion - and, in that, Anfield is unbeatable. Put a shit hanging from a stick in the middle of this passionate, crazy stadium and there are people who will tell you it's a work of art. It's not: it's a shit hanging from a stick.
"Chelsea and Liverpool are the clearest, most exaggerated example of the way football is going: very intense, very collective, very tactical, very physical, and very direct ... If Didier Drogba was the best player in the first match it was purely because he was the one who ran the fastest, jumped the highest and crashed into people the hardest."
Great stuff. I don't agree with everything he says but that's not the point. The point is, he's allowed to say it. In Britain, footballers, managers and chairmen are forever being censured or accused of "bringing the game into disrepute" if they say anything critical of opponents, referees or administrators. Whatever happened to free speech? Laws already exist to stop people going too far (or betraying confidential information). That apart, people should be allowed to say whatever they like. The alternative - banal books, interviews, press conferences - is a waste of everyone's time. If you've nothing to say, keep it to yourself. If you've something to say, you should be allowed to speak out without fear of fines or even suspension.
Why we accept censorship in any field is a mystery to me. Within reason, a free society should embrace colourful opinions. Personally, I draw the line at comments that are deliberately spiteful or malicious. But maybe that's the problem. If free speech is subjective how can we ever agree on the boundaries?
Reader Comments (5)
By placing any limit you are agreeing there needs to be a line and the only dispute is where that line is. Hence the subjectivity
I prefer to draw the line at people's rights. If someone says something that has a real world effect (beyond emotional distress) then I think you've got a case for drawing the line, or rather for the line drawing itself. i.e. your speech has resulted in X which violated my rights and so I can sue.
Of course that would take some kind of constitution laying out people's rights to work - and we just know how likely that is to ever happen in the UK.
I don't have a problem with football clubs restricting what their people are allowed to say to the press. These people have freely entered contracts. Clubs limiting what players and coaches can say to the press is much the same as you or I restricting our own speech when talking to the press on tobacco matters.
I do have a problem with tobacco companies not being allowed by the government to communicate in any way they choose with their customers. That is most certainly a free speech violation. Likewise practically any advertiser is restricted by regulations as to what can and can't be said about any number of products outside of tobacco and alcohol. These are restrictions enforced through force.
Closely related are people like the "holocaust denyer" character David Iforgethislastname. There are moves afoot in the EU right now to make "holocaust denial" a criminal offense. I think it may be offensive but it should never be illegal.
I agree it would be a threat to free speech if such was made offensive. Id say let tobacco companies advertise again. It doesnt encourage smoking- in fact do like alcohol companies do- like warning product X can damage your health.
I would be a little bit surprised if tobacco companies would not want to encourage smoking. I don't have a problem with that at all. The ASH types would say that advertising would lead to young people thinking smoking was okay. As if the only information they could possibly get on the subject were tobacco company ads.
I would also remove those disgusting screams on all tobacco packaging. And remove all taxes on tobacco. Alcohol too.
Let's go along with the idea that these things are dangerous and can even kill. I don't see why that gives anyone else a right to regulate them in any way at all. Nor does it give a right to regulate me "for my own good". I am the owner of my body and only I have the right to dictate to me what does and does not go into it.
The same applies to a second hand smoker who believes he is at risk from my smoke. In my car and my house and anywhere else that belongs to me I have the right to smoke, whether the government says so or not, so if the shs smoker comes into my property I don't need his permission to smoke around him. If he doesn't like it and asks me to refrain I may do so out of common civility but he has no right whatsoever to demand that I do.
Likewise the owner of a pub has the right to sell what he likes and serve what he likes regardless of whoever else approves or not. Now the government has usurped his rights and has been doing so for a long time but I still consider that might does not make right. Now if the pub landlord has a passion for manure pies and decides to sell them in his pub I would back him all the way so far as his right to do so goes. His customers would probably decide that they don't want to eat there any more. And with no government interfering at all none of his customers will suffer from his choice of fare. Likewise, should he permit the smoking of filthy socks in pipes on his premises, he cannot force customers to stay in his pub. And because he probably wants to make a living with his pub if too many erstwhile customers object he will ban the sock smoking as only he has the right to do.
The reason we once had property rights was to avoid conflict and to provide an easy and objective remedy when there was conflict. The first, and usually only, question to ask is who owns the property?
Getting bogged down into the nitty gritty details of whether or not something is harmful second hand or otherwise is completely irrelevant and leads us into accepting that if something were dangerous then someone has a right to regulate it.
Sock Pipes & Manure Pies. How incredibly articulate.