Football and Adultery

If a football player appears in the news outside of the sports section, chances are it’s not because they’ve been behaving themselves. It seems there’s always one scandal or another rocking the football community, regardless of which code you follow. Players cheating with each others wives, engaging in group sex, accused of rape, having photos of them naked and/or molesting animals leaded on the internet, getting drunk and assaulting people in night clubs… really it’s not that hard to think of examples of footballers misbehaving.

This article from a British Christian site questions how the behaviour of professional sports people impacts boys in our society. For many young people, professional football players are gods. They devote their lives to following them. They turn their bedrooms into shrines to these brightly clad deities. They rock up to to the stadiums in priestly garb and worship their heroes. So when they see their idols acting in inappropriate ways? Well the inappropriate becomes normal.

If it’s okay for these people that I look up to to act this way, why shouldn’t I? I think we’re negligent as a community if we are not aware of the messages being fed to our children. What is unacceptable today soon becomes tolerable and eventually acceptable.

As Christians, we need to step up. We need to be the role models that kids look up to. Men, be the people that you want the boys of today to grow into. Be men that honour God. “Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.” (1 Peter 2:17) Most of all, be seen to be a God honouring man by boys. Get involved with kids ministries. Get involved in church ministries where boys are present. And model godliness to them. Be a real man and show the boys how it’s done.