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| Adam Johnson coverage shows football has slipped its moral moorings | Adam Johnson coverage shows football has slipped its moral moorings |
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| The newspaper coverage this week of Adam Johnson, the Sunderland footballer facing a five-year prison sentence after being found guilty of sexual activity with a child, offered an intriguing glimpse into the different faces of top-flight football’s moneyed circus of the grotesque. | The newspaper coverage this week of Adam Johnson, the Sunderland footballer facing a five-year prison sentence after being found guilty of sexual activity with a child, offered an intriguing glimpse into the different faces of top-flight football’s moneyed circus of the grotesque. |
| In the news pages, victim support groups were asking increasingly fierce questions about why the £10m winger was allowed to play for Sunderland after being arrested, earning £3m in the process, despite the club’s chief executive, Margaret Byrne, having been fully briefed by police and shown 834 WhatsApp messages exchanged between Johnson and his 15-year-old victim. | In the news pages, victim support groups were asking increasingly fierce questions about why the £10m winger was allowed to play for Sunderland after being arrested, earning £3m in the process, despite the club’s chief executive, Margaret Byrne, having been fully briefed by police and shown 834 WhatsApp messages exchanged between Johnson and his 15-year-old victim. |
| On the back pages, executives from the country’s biggest clubs had been photographed leaving a secret summit with representatives from a US sports marketing giant, at which they discussed ways in which they could make even more money from potentially revamping the Champions League. Meanwhile the prime minister insisted that he felt the pain of ordinary fans protesting over ticket prices in the light of the Premier League’s £8.3bn broadcasting deal. | On the back pages, executives from the country’s biggest clubs had been photographed leaving a secret summit with representatives from a US sports marketing giant, at which they discussed ways in which they could make even more money from potentially revamping the Champions League. Meanwhile the prime minister insisted that he felt the pain of ordinary fans protesting over ticket prices in the light of the Premier League’s £8.3bn broadcasting deal. |
| These three loosely connected strands coalesced by the end of the week into a familiar feeling that football has long slipped its moral moorings, even as its commercial value and the wages of its star players soar. | These three loosely connected strands coalesced by the end of the week into a familiar feeling that football has long slipped its moral moorings, even as its commercial value and the wages of its star players soar. |
| The details of the Johnson case illuminated a world in which talented players are plucked from school and paid huge sums from an early age, often well before they break into the first team. | The details of the Johnson case illuminated a world in which talented players are plucked from school and paid huge sums from an early age, often well before they break into the first team. |
| Over two days in the witness box at Bradford crown court, Johnson painted his fellow players as a bunch of pampered millionaires who, when not playing football or partying in Las Vegas, Los Angeles or Dubai, were glued endlessly to their smartphones. He was candid when asked how football had affected his maturity. “It slowed it down,” he said, adding that he had become arrogant and acted without integrity towards his partner, Stacey Flounders, and their baby daughter. It was the monotony of life as a Premier League footballer, he claimed, that caused him to “get caught up” in sending sexually charged messages to a series of women – and the 15-year-old girl – behind his partner’s back. | Over two days in the witness box at Bradford crown court, Johnson painted his fellow players as a bunch of pampered millionaires who, when not playing football or partying in Las Vegas, Los Angeles or Dubai, were glued endlessly to their smartphones. He was candid when asked how football had affected his maturity. “It slowed it down,” he said, adding that he had become arrogant and acted without integrity towards his partner, Stacey Flounders, and their baby daughter. It was the monotony of life as a Premier League footballer, he claimed, that caused him to “get caught up” in sending sexually charged messages to a series of women – and the 15-year-old girl – behind his partner’s back. |
| “You’re bored and you get caught up in texting just to keep yourself busy,” he explained, when asked about the hundreds of messages he sent to the teenager, mostly from a hotel room the night before a match or while waiting for the team coach to depart Sunderland’s Stadium of Light. Never mind the glamorous partner, the newborn baby and the £1.85m mansion – it was all, it seemed, to add a bit of spice to the daily tedium of life as a £60,000-a-week Premier League footballer. | “You’re bored and you get caught up in texting just to keep yourself busy,” he explained, when asked about the hundreds of messages he sent to the teenager, mostly from a hotel room the night before a match or while waiting for the team coach to depart Sunderland’s Stadium of Light. Never mind the glamorous partner, the newborn baby and the £1.85m mansion – it was all, it seemed, to add a bit of spice to the daily tedium of life as a £60,000-a-week Premier League footballer. |
| Jon Holmes, the former football agent whose clients included Gary Lineker and David Beckham, believes the way the dynamic has shifted between players, their advisers and their clubs as wages have risen exponentially in the Premier League era is a factor. “The problem now is that if the agents do anything to upset them, they get the sack. They get someone else to feed their ego,” said Holmes, also a former chairman of Leicester City. “They are more glorified concierges than advisers. There are so many people hanging on to the gravy train that nobody wants to upset it.” | Jon Holmes, the former football agent whose clients included Gary Lineker and David Beckham, believes the way the dynamic has shifted between players, their advisers and their clubs as wages have risen exponentially in the Premier League era is a factor. “The problem now is that if the agents do anything to upset them, they get the sack. They get someone else to feed their ego,” said Holmes, also a former chairman of Leicester City. “They are more glorified concierges than advisers. There are so many people hanging on to the gravy train that nobody wants to upset it.” |
| One former neighbour in Grants Houses, the mining village on the east Durham coast where Johnson honed the skills that would later make him a multimillionaire, said the 28-year-old had never had to grow up. “Adam never had a normal adult life. He was a footballer when he was still a boy and he never learned how to become a man,” he said. “He had everything done for him and he had too much money at too young an age. I think it made him believe he could do whatever he wanted without having to face up to it.” | One former neighbour in Grants Houses, the mining village on the east Durham coast where Johnson honed the skills that would later make him a multimillionaire, said the 28-year-old had never had to grow up. “Adam never had a normal adult life. He was a footballer when he was still a boy and he never learned how to become a man,” he said. “He had everything done for him and he had too much money at too young an age. I think it made him believe he could do whatever he wanted without having to face up to it.” |
| Related: Sunderland and PFA must stop avoiding questions over Adam Johnson case | Related: Sunderland and PFA must stop avoiding questions over Adam Johnson case |
| Club press officers tell tales of hours spent trying to keep kiss-and-tell stories out of newspapers. The concentric circles of hangers-on that surround their players often overlap with criminal elements, and the challenge of policing players perennially glued to WhatsApp or Snapchat is considerable. | Club press officers tell tales of hours spent trying to keep kiss-and-tell stories out of newspapers. The concentric circles of hangers-on that surround their players often overlap with criminal elements, and the challenge of policing players perennially glued to WhatsApp or Snapchat is considerable. |
| In Sunderland’s training ground canteen, Johnson said, every player would stare at their smartphones, swap texts and make small talk to pass the time. He claimed that before one training session, the squad of 30 players discussed a documentary on underage marriage. It was this conversation, he claimed, that prompted him to Google “legal age of consent” four days after his illegal sexual activity with the victim in his car. | |
| Clubs are under huge competitive pressure to sign the brightest talent from the age of seven upwards and keep their young charges and their parents happy. Perhaps that is one reason why, despite employing child welfare officers and increasingly delivering lifestyle courses, they tend to default to protecting their “asset” when crisis hits. From John Terry’s on-field racism and Jose Mourinho’s treatment of club doctor Eva Carneiro at Chelsea, to Liverpool’s determination to defend Luis Suárez over racism charges and the furore over Oldham Athletic’s unsuccessful attempt to sign the convicted rapist Ched Evans, a depressing trend has emerged. | Clubs are under huge competitive pressure to sign the brightest talent from the age of seven upwards and keep their young charges and their parents happy. Perhaps that is one reason why, despite employing child welfare officers and increasingly delivering lifestyle courses, they tend to default to protecting their “asset” when crisis hits. From John Terry’s on-field racism and Jose Mourinho’s treatment of club doctor Eva Carneiro at Chelsea, to Liverpool’s determination to defend Luis Suárez over racism charges and the furore over Oldham Athletic’s unsuccessful attempt to sign the convicted rapist Ched Evans, a depressing trend has emerged. |
| Namely, that clubs are keen to promote their community schemes and champion diversity when it suits them, but mislay their moral compass when it comes to the bottom line and results on the pitch. It is one in which fans are sometimes complicit: Johnson’s and Evans’s victims were both hounded on social media. “Football fans themselves should take a look at this and let justice take its course. That poor young woman has been through an awful lot. She has had her life torn apart by this. It’s horrible,” said shadow sports minister Clive Efford. He called on the Football Association to develop a clear set of guidelines for clubs that, like professions such as teaching, would see players suspended if they were accused of serious offences. | Namely, that clubs are keen to promote their community schemes and champion diversity when it suits them, but mislay their moral compass when it comes to the bottom line and results on the pitch. It is one in which fans are sometimes complicit: Johnson’s and Evans’s victims were both hounded on social media. “Football fans themselves should take a look at this and let justice take its course. That poor young woman has been through an awful lot. She has had her life torn apart by this. It’s horrible,” said shadow sports minister Clive Efford. He called on the Football Association to develop a clear set of guidelines for clubs that, like professions such as teaching, would see players suspended if they were accused of serious offences. |
| In the wake of the outcry over an attempted return to football by Evans, whose appeal to the criminal cases review board will be heard later this month, both the FA and the Football League promised reviews of the issues around footballers and serious sexual offences. But nothing more has been heard. “It became a talking shop for doing nothing,” said Efford. | |
| Meanwhile the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) acknowledged that it could play more of a role in educating young players. “The PFA has developed over a period of time a training programme incorporating the theme of personal integrity for all professional players, ensuring they are fully informed on such issues. It includes sexual consent, standards of behaviour and respectful relationships in person and on social media,” it said. “Situations such as this, unfortunately, demonstrate that this is a vital area for our focus and that there is still much work to do.” | |
| Related: We can only hope that football learns from the sordid Adam Johnson case | Archie Bland | Related: We can only hope that football learns from the sordid Adam Johnson case | Archie Bland |
| Rick Parry, the former Liverpool FC and Premier League chief executive, argues there is only so much the clubs themselves can achieve. | Rick Parry, the former Liverpool FC and Premier League chief executive, argues there is only so much the clubs themselves can achieve. |
| “We were very aware of it and took it very seriously, through club chaplaincy and an education officer,” he said. “There are some kids for whom football is their saviour and there were others where you did everything you conceivably could, but at the end of the day you can’t change them.” | “We were very aware of it and took it very seriously, through club chaplaincy and an education officer,” he said. “There are some kids for whom football is their saviour and there were others where you did everything you conceivably could, but at the end of the day you can’t change them.” |