For the best part of twenty years Manchester United enjoyed an effective hegemony over the Premier League, as between 1993 and 2013 a glorified group of British youngsters, led by Alex Ferguson the red-nosed Scot, helped the side to a remarkable thirteen league titles.
For much of the past decade Manchester United’s main rivals at the top of the Premier League have been Chelsea, epitomised by the character of José Mourinho, a Portuguese coach who seems to dream of self-gratification with a British red top and a hand full of fish and chips, and utter English legends like John Terry and Frank Lampard.
Now for the first time since 2003 neither side is set to feature in the Champions League, and the Premier League and Football Association have decided to take steps to rectify the situation.
For starting this season, referees will be urged to issue arbitrary red cards to players who besmirch the game by happening to play for lesser football clubs. Officially the idea is to crack down on the habit of angrily and obscenely confronting match officials.
But this principle has always been in place, and never enforced because the leading culprits when it comes to haranguing and abusing match officials have always been Manchester United and Chelsea. The Premier League and the Football Association have always been content to let them run amok because of their international prestige and the perception that they win viewers while upholding a curiously Anglocentric form of British identity.
John Terry never has to concern himself with overstepping the mark when it comes to referees, because he is the referee, deciding the outcome of games from his perch on the official’s shoulder. Last season’s league champions Leicester City might well suffer from the new emphasis placed on old offences, but can you imagine how many times referees following these rules would have to send off Wayne Rooney?
In fact Rooney has been given a special exemption from the prohibition placed on ‘offensive, insulting, or abusive’ language and gestures. Considering the lack of proper grammar taught in English schools, the burden the national side has long placed upon him, his captaincy of Manchester United, and his unruly hair follicles, it is clear – according to the FA – why Rooney finds himself incapable of communicating without a tirade of swearing.
