Andries Bekker cheating on wife!!!

[Haysie]

Any top flight sporting players, at the time of signing, agree to become a role model and respresentative not only for themselves and their personal brand, but for the sporting assosciation/franchise/club which signs them.
By no means however does this mean that Andries Bekker's contract should be torn up, instead he will require extra care over the coming months to ensure that his head is in the right place.
While his personal brand may have been besmirched this doesn't mean that he will be any less of a rugby player.

 

[Charles]

Any top flight sporting players, at the time of signing, agree to become a role model and respresentative
.

How so? AFAIK they sign to play rugby, no more, no less.

THis might be different in the SH with all the emphasis put on sport in society.

 

[Haysie]

Charles,
In the Southern Hemisphere that is definitely the way it is. Reason behind it being the way that the club, franchise or country is interpreted in the public eye is very important. (Take the multitude of S14 supporters for example).
I'm very surprised that's not the way it is in the NH?

 

[Charles]

Charles,
In the Southern Hemisphere that is definitely the way it is. Reason behind it being the way that the club, franchise or country is interpreted in the public eye is very important. (Take the multitude of S14 supporters for example).
I'm very surprised that's not the way it is in the NH?

I dunno about the UK but I would suspect nobody gives a **** in France. We're not puritans for a start, and we got other stuff to worry about. Sports are not the main topic of discussions like they seem to be in Autralia, and the gutter press focuses more on show business.
3 players of the national fottball squad got in trouble for ******* a 18yrs old hooker and they're still going to the WC, our former President Mitterand had a hidden daughteretc...And we don't really have this role model thing like you seem to have in the anglosphere. Sportsmen are sportsmen, usually dumb guys doing sport well.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I think, with football being so big over here, we're desensitized to sportsman acting in an un-gentlemanly way

 

[Haysie]

While sports certainly aren't the main topic of discussion in Australia, although a large part of our culture, I can see your point.

The 'gutter press' seems to target anything they can which is also why things like this are blown enormously out of proportion very quickly. It seems that people have inherently short memories however and a few fantastic performances on the sporting field can wipe the slate clean.

As I see it, sportsmen here must have a profession or avenue of making money after football. There are only so many commentary jobs being handed out, therefore many rugby players in Australia are also students at various Universities.

Another reason why it is imperative to have the team seen as a 'good bunch' is the large amounts of money changing hands in the upper echelons, the various sponsorship and corporate rights deals that take place. I doubt that BNZ, Vodacom, o2, Queensland Rail, HSBC Bank, Investec or any of the hundreds of companies which adorn the Top14/D2 jerseys would like to be assosciated with a group of men who rape and pillage constantly.