Martin Johnson quits, crisis time at Stamford Bridge, Sepp Blatter and a new racism row – just some of this week’s sporting quotes collated by JANINE SELF
“There is no racism, there is maybe one of the players towards another, he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one. During a match you may say something to somebody who is not exactly looking like you. But at the end of the match it’s forgotten. This is not racism. Racism is if the spectators or outside the field of play make a movement. If it happens in a league they have to make the investigation and come to a solution. But I would say bring those two people together and say ‘shake hands’. He should say this is a game. We are in a game and at the end we shake hands” Sepp Blatter, the head of FIFA.
“I have been racially abused as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult. I have also been racially abused on a football pitch, a Premier League football pitch, with the words ‘coon’ and ‘nigger’ uttered more times than frankly I’d care to mention. In one match I was subjected to taunts from one player for a full 15 minutes. I was angry and I can assure you I would never have been able to shake his hand. In fact, the only way I’d shake with a racist is if I had him by the throat” Stan Collymore in his hard-hitting column in The People.
“There has been a massive increase in hate crimes towards disabled people. There seems to be a feeling that many are just work-shy welfare scroungers, happy to live on benefits, which is quite wrong. My hope is that the Paralympics will change people’s perceptions, because they will show what disabled people can achieve. Ninety per cent of those athletes taking part won’t even know about disability benefits because they’ve been too busy making something of their lives” Tanni Grey-Thompson, speaking at the SJA Ladbrokes Lunch in London last week.
“Whenever I watch him play, to me David Luiz looks like he’s being controlled by a 10-year-old in the crowd on a Playstation” Gary Neville tackles his new job as a Sky Sport pundit as comfortably as an accomplished former England right-back during Chelsea’s 2-1 home defeat to Liverpool.
“The owner didn’t pay €15 million to get me out of Porto to pay me another fortune to get out of here” Andre Villas-Boas, the Chelsea coach, more confident in his own position than he perhaps can afford to be.
“We now have an excellent idea of how much Manchester City had to pay for last season’s FA Cup final victory: £197.5 million. Strangely, those figures do not shock us. They are simply too large, too far beyond our understanding. I do not know what the state of Abu Dhabi would expect to pay for a sustained advertising campaign, which is what City have effectively become, but the thickest end of £200 million seems rather extravagant” Patrick Collins, Mail on Sunday.
“Thanks Theo, thanks Alex, great assists! Good performance. Should have scored more goals today but great to have the 3 points! Enjoy your eve (sic)!” Robin van Persie thanks his team-mates on Twitter (@Persie_Official)
“Doctors advise caution but players are adventurous. Shane is the adventurous side of adventure. He is Tintin-plus. No doctor was going to stop him playing” Roy Hodgson on the return of West Brom’s Shane Long just four weeks after chipping a bone in his knee.
“I wasn’t let down, we were a team together. Things happen and get reported. Of course it didn’t help. We don’t want that reputation. It doesn’t accurately reflect what we have as a group” Martin Johnson stays loyal to his players after resigning as England manager.
“Of course, by falling on his sword Johnson has in one sense merely underlined the chronic confusion that grips the Rugby Football Union. It has more reviews than the New York Times books supplement but with little or no indication that it is in danger of getting to the heart of its problems” James Lawton, chief sports writer, The Independent.
“He was wryly amused that he’d just been voted one of South Africa’s 10 greatest cricketers, even though he had never played first-class cricket in his home country. ‘You should have seen me when I played at Signal Hill in my 20s,’ he smiled. ‘I was some player then. I was over the hill when I came to England'” Pat Murphy, who ghost-wrote Basil D’Oliveira’s autobiography follows his eloquent eulogy on BBC Five Live with an online tribute too.
“Never have the sanctions against the hard-line cheats been so weak since the end of the Cold War. It is understandable that many in sport have concluded that WADA has underachieved in the 10 years it has been operational. Not least because the system put in place by WADA has failed to catch the major drug cheats of our time. We now have a situation where drug cheats will be able to compete in London 2012. Anti-doping policy is entering a dark age” Colin Moynihan, British Olympic Association chairman in a speech to international sports federation leaders in Switzerland.
“Airdrie United 11, Gala Fairydean 0” Tim Gudgin, 81, during the reading of his final set of classified football results after six decades on BBC Grandstand and Final Score.
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