MARTIN SAMUEL: Forget what Adidas or Marine Le Pen think… Kurt Zouma’s reputation is lost and NOTHING he achieves in football will overshadow that. It is his true punishment
- There have been calls this week for Kurt Zouma to be sacked by West Ham
- The defender is under huge scrutiny after the footage of him kicking his cat
- Adidas have sacked Zouma and even Marine Le Pen has spoken about him
There’s a song by Robert Wyatt. He talks it, like a story. He’s in the countryside being driven through Wiltshire.
It’s a lovely day, sun shining, trees green, and he spies a low concrete outbuilding, flat roof, no more than two feet tall. He asks what it is. The local person accompanying him says it’s where they keep pigs.
‘I thought, oh, yes, I see, that’s where they keep pigs, and the sun was shining down and the grass was green and it was all very lovely, driving in the country and I suddenly thought what that building must have been like, from the inside…’
And then Wyatt utters the simple line, asks the simple question that gives the song its power, and its name. ‘Pigs? In there?’ he says. Later he will expand. ‘On a day like this? Huddled up in there? In the dark? Living in there? Pigs?’
Pigs (In There) was written around the same time that Wyatt scored The Animals Film, documenting man’s inhumane treatment and exploitation of the planet’s creatures. When it was eventually shown on Channel 4 in 1982, the last seven minutes were cut due to the fear it could ‘incite crime or lead to civil disorder’. The tagline for the film is equally true today. ‘It’s not about them, it’s about us.’
So there will be many who have signed the petition to charge Kurt Zouma, or have him sacked, who will drive past pig sties without a second thought, and would continue to eat cheap bacon even if they had the knowledge of how it came to market. And there are companies and individuals commenting on the case, whose own consistent behaviour does not stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny.
Kurt Zouma is facing intensifying scrutiny in the aftermath of the video of him kicking his cat
Zouma surprisingly started in West Ham’s 1-0 win against Watford earlier this week
A Snapchat video, captioned with ‘Sa commence’ showed Zouma kicking the cat across his kitchen floor
Marine Le Pen? Really? She gets a say? The political leader who compared Muslim prayers in public streets to the Nazi occupation? Whose response to the refugee crisis was a call to withdraw from the Schengen Area and restore France’s tightest borders? She now gets to lecture on human kindness?
Meanwhile, Experience Kissimmee ended its sponsorship with Zouma’s club West Ham, yet continues to promote tickets for SeaWorld on its website. Perhaps Kissimmee would like to peruse PETA’s list of ‘18 horrible things SeaWorld has done to animals’ when it gets the time.
A random sample? The original Shamu was abducted from her mother, who was harpooned and killed in front of her; 12 dolphins were captured from Chilean waters and placed on display, six dying within six months; Seaworld separated two bonded polar bears who had been together for 20 years, and without any species companions one of them, Szenja, died inside two months.
Still, Experience Kissimmee would like the world to know it cares very much for Kurt Zouma’s cats.
As should we all. What a horrible thing to do. The RSPCA took them away and the most dispiriting news is that, if it considers they are not physically injured or being mistreated, they will be returned. Even if the cats are in the best of health Zouma has forfeited his right to have animals in his house again. There should be a law against it, beyond the basic charge of animal cruelty. The RSPCA should be able to apply for a restraining order on any individual guilty of mistreating an animal, even through ignorance.
And Zouma wasn’t ignorant. Everyone knows kicking a cat across the room is wrong. His brother, who filmed his abhorrent behaviour and was so approving and unmoved he posted it on social media, is equally culpable. A ban on keeping pets should apply to him, too.
Should it end Zouma’s football career, though? That is an entirely different matter. It seems that every crime or misdemeanour these days is a sackable offence to some.
Adidas have sacked Zouma but did not sever ties with Luis Suarez after the Patrice Evra affair
Far right French politician Marine Le Pen (pictured) has even waded in on the Zouma situation
Jimmy Carr is in the process of being cancelled for the sin of being Jimmy Carr. Another comedian, David Baddiel, felt moved to condemn him for joking about gypsies and then it emerged Baddiel was not clean in this area either. And round and round it goes. Zouma has been condemned by, among others, former footballers who have been accused of physical assault, of drunk driving, of racial abuse.
Then, Michail Antonio, his team-mate, wanted to know why, if Zouma must be sacked, players responsible for acts of racism return after short suspensions. Is kicking a cat worse than racism? After all, Adidas, who have sacked Zouma, did not sever ties with Luis Suarez after the Patrice Evra affair.
The answer? It doesn’t matter. They’re both bad. Racism, cat-kicking. There doesn’t have to be a sliding scale of monstrousness.
This was what made David Moyes’s argument that he picked Zouma because ‘he’s one of our better players’ so poor. It implies West Ham have a register for pet abuse generally, based on performance.
Given the way Alex Kral and Issa Diop played at Kidderminster last Saturday, one imagines they are not allowed to kick any pets, not even a guinea pig with a particularly ugly attitude.
Antonio would once have been allowed a good five cats and even the odd dog, but has dipped recently so might be down to two. Jarrod Bowen, in the form of his life, probably six cats; and Declan Rice maybe as many as eight, and a couple of owners as well. Moyes’s reasoning was ridiculous; we can all agree on that.
Michail Antonio (pictured) has questioned why West Ham team-mate Zouma is facing calls to be sacked when footballers convicted of racism haven’t faced similar calls
West Ham boss David Moyes said Zouma played v Watford as he’s one of their best players
Yet there is a moral argument for continuing to select Zouma, had Moyes wished to make it. For putting him out in front of 60,000 fans when disgust was at its highest might have been a more chastening lesson for the player. Rather than allowing him to hide away until the worst of the controversy has blown over before quietly restoring him to the team when home support could be guaranteed — against Newcastle on February 19, for instance.
By playing him so soon, pretty much on the day the footage emerged, Moyes could not even guarantee the reaction of West Ham’s own fans. On the night, most of the opprobrium came from the Watford end, but it was not as if the whole stadium rallied around Zouma either. Give it a few weeks, and that will change. Players bounce back from all manner of scandals and outrages, particularly valued ones. In almost every case, they receive home support.
So while playing Zouma seemed an act of self-interest, not playing him might also have been interpreted as a tactic, too. At least this way there is no question of him being able to escape the roar of public opinion.
If selected, his next game is away at Leicester on Sunday where West Ham’s travelling contingent will find it hard to be heard, and no doubt the home support will be in full condemnatory voice. Would it really be more of a punishment to allow Zouma to escape that reckoning?
For that is the reality of his situation now. Wherever he goes he will be Zouma the cat-kicker. One of the reasons West Ham, as a club, haven’t cast him out instantly is that, until this week, it would not be believed Zouma was capable of such a thing.
There is an element of shock about what he has done. He was regarded as a polite, decent guy, one of those cliched gentle giant centre halves. And not just here. In France — momentarily ignoring the wise words of Le Pen, who leads a party that previously complained of there being too many black players in the national football team — federation chief Noel Le Graet has also spoken of his bemusement.
There is an argument that making Zouma face the music is a form of punishment in itself
‘It’s an obviously shocking act of mistreatment,’ he said. ‘An unjustified act of violence, which is idiotic and mean, and seems even more surprising given I’ve never heard anything bad said about Zouma. On the contrary, he’s a guy who is known for being respectful and positive. I note that he’s apologised. I hope he’s learnt his lesson and I think that’s the case.’
Maybe it is. Zouma would have to be a rare kind of foolish, and cruel, not to have gleaned anything from reactions this last week.
This is his future, though, this is now his brand. The big bully who kicks cats. His reputation is lost and nothing he achieves in the game will overshadow that. It is Zouma’s true punishment; and a little more than a one-game ban against Watford.
At last, Tottenham have taken responsibility and asked their fans to cease using the word Yid. ‘It is time to move on from associating this term with our club,’ read the statement. True, and better late than never. Sadly, a great many anti-Semites have already been enabled by Tottenham’s timidity.
It is to be hoped fellow travellers at the Metropolitan Police and the Oxford English Dictionary — who both define a Yid as a Tottenham fan, in some contexts — can modernise, too.
Much fuss about Dele Alli’s attire when he was unveiled before Everton’s fans last weekend.
Having seen his performance against Newcastle on Tuesday, mind, it should be a bigger concern what he’s got on his feet. Clogs, judging by the way he got around the pitch.
It was an unimpressive start to life at Everton for Dele Alli in Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to Newcastle
Great Britain’s German luger came 23rd, our Dutch speed skater finished 19th and the French snowboarder — a gold medal certainty for Team GB apparently — went out at the quarter-final stage in tears.
Charlotte Bankes, though, said she had no regrets about switching allegiance having competed for France in the previous two Games.
‘I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t made that choice,’ she said. Full marks for honesty, because this is nothing more than a flag of convenience for them all.
Every Dutch speed skater finished above GB’s Cornelius Kersten, including the gold and silver medallists, and three German lugers reached the top six ahead of Briton Rupert Staudinger, including gold medallist Johannes Ludwig.
This hasn’t been the greatest Olympics for Britain so far, and there would be no shame in that, were it not for the incredible amount of work put in gaming the system.
As Gu Ailing became the face of the Beijing Games, so ‘Eileen Gu — traitor’ was trending in the United States. Gu, born and raised in America, competed for the country of her birth before switching allegiance to China conveniently in time for a home Olympics.
‘Sport does not have to be related to nationality,’ she said after winning a Big Air gold medal. Although she does appear to be playing her heritage rather well. ‘When I’m in the US, I’m American, but when I’m in China, I’m Chinese,’ Gu explained.
So don’t worry, America. If you get to host a winter Games in her competitive lifetime, you can guarantee she’ll be with you all the way.
Sir Andrew Strauss’s decision to cut Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad from the tour of the West Indies has been depicted as a tough call.
They are, after all, old friends and England team-mates. But close?
The call to drop Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad from England has shocked the cricket world
The last time the pair were ditched was when the white-ball squad was revamped in 2015. And the ruthless decision-maker that time? Their old mate Strauss.
Be interesting to see the invitation list if Anderson has a 40th birthday bash this summer. Could be the odd big name axed from that, too.
‘From when I was born, I love suffering,’ said Tottenham’s new acquisition Dejan Kulusevski.
Judging by his league debut against Southampton, in which Tottenham went from 2-1 up to 3-2 down across three minutes, he’s come to the right place.
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