OK – let’s get one thing clear. I’m not in favour of kicking, throwing or slapping cats. Or dogs. Or sheep. Or cows. I want to make that clear as I consider the sad tale of Kurt Zouma, who plays football for West Ham.
There’s a video, apparently, which shows Zouma doing some cat kicking, throwing and slapping. Not the action of a man closely attached to his pet. The question now is, will he be punished for his actions?
It appears he will. A sponsor of West Ham, Fidelity, is said to be withdrawing its sponsorship from the club. The West Ham manager has been heavily criticised for playing him a few nights ago. And it’s been suggested he should be sold and never play for the club again.
So here’s my question: which would you rather, be kicked or killed and eaten? Many of the people up in arms over Zouma will have, even as they objected to him, been digesting pieces of a cow, or lamb, or pig, or other meat product. Would you say there’s a contradiction here?
And as one caller to Talkback t’other day said, if the video had shown Zouma kicking/stamping on/killing a rat, would there have been similar outcry?
Isn’t it time we got our criteria straight? Is kicking a cat worse than being unfaithful to your spouse? Because I’ve never heard of a footballer being dismissed because he was having an affair. Is it worse to kick and kill a rat than a cat? The cat would probably say no, the rat yes. So is there a hierarchy, as the Talkback caller said?
Players are bought by clubs because of their footballing ability. They should stay with the club and play or be sold on, on the basis of how well or how poorly they play. In the course of a game, almost certainly a number of players will be penalised because they – yep – kicked another player. But that’s OK, nobody’s going to sell on a player who gets stuck in. And few cats pull on a Premier League shirt.
I could go on with this topic which has become a prime example of warped thinking, but I’ll stop. I’m going out to feed my half-dozen hens before deciding which one will have its neck wrung, feathers plucked, insides removed, washed and cooked and sliced and made into a yummy chicken sandwich.
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