Sportsmen behaving badly

Just when you thought French football couldn't be embarrassed anymore, it appears Les Bleus can. After a humiliating summer, both on and off the pitch, two of their supposedly 'star players' have been arrested for soliciting sex with under-age prostitutes. Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery, and Karim Benzema, the Real Madrid striker, are at the centre of an on-going investigation into an alleged under-age prostitution ring in France. The prostitute who has made the allegations, Zahia Dehar, was under 18 when she alleges she had paid sex with Ribery and Benzema last year. In France, it is illegal to pay for sex with someone under the age of 18, even though the age of consent is 15.
Both players, who's combined transfers from Marseille and Lyon to foreign clubs garnered £55 million respectively, have denied any wrongdoing through their lawyers. And this means, there will probably be some technicality which will get them off the charges, because this always seems to happen when sportsmen get their hands dirty. Now far be it from me to suggest Ribery and Benzema are guilty without having stood any sort of trial, but sportsmen (and footballers in particular) have previous in this area.
When there is match-fixing or performance enhancing drugs involved, the footballing and sporting authorities are quick to clamp down on the offenders. But when there are scandals away from the field of play, now that's another matter altogether.
One of the most famous examples of this, is obviously the incident involving Jonathon Woodgate and Lee Bowyer a decade ago. Let's paint the picture. Leeds United were the up-and-coming team of the era, with a host of talented young players, who were on the brink of leading the Yorkshire club to the Champions League for the first time. But with such a young squad, there were drawbacks. In January 2000, 21-year-old student Sarfraz Najeib was beaten unconscious outside a nightclub in Leeds. He was bitten on the face, and suffered a broken nose, leg and cheekbone as he was put into a coma. Both Bowyer and Woodgate were arrested in connection with the attack, along with their friends Paul Clifford and Neale Caveney.
It was one of the most high-profile legal cases in recent times. And this was one of the reasons why the outcome pleased no-one, except for the players and Leeds United. The first case had to be dropped due to a controversial article in a Sunday newspaper compromised the court proceedings. The Sunday Mirror printed an interview with Mr Najeib's father as the jury considered their verdict during the first trial, calling the judge to call a halt to proceedings over fears the trial could be prejudiced. In some people's eyes, there was only ever going to be one verdict after such a delay. Bowyer was cleared of all charges, while Woodgate was ordered to do 100 hours community service after being found guilty of affray, as was Mr Clifford. Only Mr Caveney was found guilty of grievous bodily harm, and sentenced to six years in jail. Mr Najeib and his family were understandably devastated with the verdict, but this example is symptomatic of how professional sportsmen at the highest level seem to be untouchable.
Mr Najeib has struggled to get over the physical and mental scars of the attack. Bowyer and Woodgate? They've both been capped by England since the attack, and are both still Premiership footballers. Some justice! This is a problem indicative of sport, but football in general. It is not like any other business. Such wrongdoing would not be acceptable in most lines of work, but this simply doesn't apply to football. Take the example of Lee Hughes - the former West Bromwich Albion and Coventry City striker killed a man while over the limit behind the wheel of a car, and fled the scene rather than reporting the incident. He spent a measly three years behind bars, and when he was released, he had already signed a contract to resume his playing career at Oldham Athletic.
Bowyer, Woodgate and Hughes aren't the only footballers to have dealings with the wrong side of the law. Back in 2003, a series of Premiership footballers were questioned over allegations they gang-raped a 17-year-old student in a room in the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. Carlton Cole, then on loan at Charlton Athletic from Chelsea, and Titus Bramble, then at Newcastle United, were among those named, but unsurprisingly, the case went away without a great deal of furore. Kieron Dyer issued a statement denying any involvement in the incident, despite staying at the same hotel on the night the alleged rape took place. It took two months for the names of Bramble and Cole to be published in connection with the allegations, as there were fears any possible prosecution would be jeopardised if the press got involved. That same year, Leeds United's Jody Morris was arrested for an alleged sex attack on a 20-year-old woman near Leeds and Newcastle's Olivier Bernard was arrested for supposedly raping a 16-year-old girl in Northumbria.
A hotel in Manchester was at the centre of a scandal four years later, as Manchester United's Christmas party at Great John Street Hotel got out of hand in 2007. Young defender Jonny Evans was arrested on suspicion of raping a 26-year-old woman, but all charges were later dropped.
None of these charges were followed through to conviction, much the same as in the astonishing case of the Leicester City players on a mid-season tour at the Spanish golf resort of La Manga. Six players were arrested in total - Paul Dickov, Matt Elliot, Keith Gillespie, Lilian Nalis, James Scowcroft and Frank Sinclair, with Dickov, Gillespie and Sinclair being charged with rape but walking scott-free even though there was plenty of evidence against them.
This is not a problem isolated to football, however. One of the highest profile cases of sportsmen behaving badly must be that of LA Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant, one of the highest-paid sportsmen in the world. In 2003 (not a good year for sportmen) Bryant, the best paid player in the NBA, was accused of a serious sexual assault at the Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Colorado. What made the case even more messy? He was supposedly happily married to Vanessa Bryant. The 19-year-old accuser Katelyn Faber.
Inevitably, the case was settled out of court before going to trial. Bryant admitted to an extra-marital affair with Faber, he denied the accusations of sexual assault. The case was dropped before it went to trial because Faber informed she was unwilling to testify, after prosecutors had spent more than $200 million preparing the case. The deal of the out-of-court settlement were kept under wraps, but it's fair to say she will not have been left out of pocket by the whole affair. As for Bryant, he is still married to Vanessa to this day, was named the NBA's most valuable player in 2008 and the finals most valuable player in 2009 and 2010, and a year after the allegations, signed a $135 million, seven year contract.
Sportspeople rarely get punished - they have a way of wriggling out of predicaments. Sport, and football in particular, is never a closed community. Even when the stars get punished for what they have done, they are not ostracised from the community - they are too valuable as assets, so all past misdemeanours can be overlooked. Be it drugs (Paul Merson), alcohol (Tony Adams) or a serious crime (Hughes), nothing is irredeemable. There is something strange about the mentality of sport - Everton's Tim Cahill performed a bizarre handcuffed celebration in support of his brother who had been sentenced to six years in jail for his part in an assault which left a man blinded. And here's the crux - while sportsmen continue to think they are above the law, they will continue acting as if they are above the law. There is no way to know at this stage if Ribery and Benzema are guilty - but they are unlikely to be found guilty either way in the current climate.