Wait a second, who is the villain in this piece?

[girliejones]

So. Michael Clarke needs to break up with his fiancee Lara Bingle because it's getting in the way of his being Skipper of the Australian Cricket Team. So say high level cricketing type people

Comments

[baby_elvis]

Nassar Hussein, the then English Cricket Captain, was heavily criticised for flying home to be with his wife when their baby was born. To me, that shows just how screwed up the value system is.

I am quite sure Fevola will get away with the 'boys will be boys' excuse. Pathetic.

[girliejones]

These sports foster horrible values for the men that play them and then they get into deep shit when surprisingly (not) they go well over the line of appropriate behaviour according to society.

makes me sick

[cassiphone]

Recently, Tevez, a Premier League footballer who shifted to Manchester City this season, was criticised by his bosses for staying away from England for more than a week when his baby was born PREMMIE.

Because yeah, a man worried about the health of his newborn child and the emotional wellbeing of his wife is REALLY going to kick a ball up to his usual standards.

[girliejones]

It's revolting. And I hate the subculture it promotes. In my world I've had the opportunity recently to watch lots of new fathers and as far as I can see, the experience of being there and taking care of the bub is as vital for the father as the mother - in terms of bonding, experience and support to the mother.

[punktortoise]

It's disappointing, though perhaps sadly unsurprising, if both the sporting codes involved in this story are behaving in the manner you've reported (I haven't closely been following the story, so I'm essentially taking your word for it on some of these points). Certainly it's Fevola that the spotlight should be on, but I suspect there's less newsworthiness to the story of 'yet-another-footy-player-behaves-badly' than there is to the 'cricketer-who-isn't-Shane-Warne-tied-to-a-salacious-scandal' angle. And Lara Bingle is surely simply the fiancee of Clarke, not the 'bikini-model fiancee' (unless Clarke has other fiancees who aren't bikini models?) I mean, wtf extraneous detail? If they're going to persist in trundling that out as some kind of suggestion that, in some perverted sense, she's used to showing a reasonable amount of flesh so it's all a big fuss over nothing, really - which is how the flavour of the WA Today extract reads - then surely in fairness they should be consistently identifying Fevola as 'acknowledged privacy

[girliejones]

Couldn't agree with all your points more.

For me, there is also disappointment in the lack of surprise that this is how these two codes of sport are handling it. It seems education for respect of women needs to not be focussed just on the players ...

The media are as usual, sub par.

[kaelajael]

Yes, BF is the bad guy in all this. We can say without any doubt that he knew he was married when he had a fling - we can't say the same for her. And the photo isn't a posed "check out my boobs" shot. She looks upset.

As for Michael Clarke, when Jane McGrath got the news that her cancer had reoccurred, Glenn dropped everything and went to her side. As he should, and he was hailed a hero. (IIRC it was in the middle of a match)

Personally, I think if he has come back to dump her, he is more chivalrous than most. To my mind, you don't normally drop everything you are doing to dump someone - support yes, but not dump, that can wait.
On the way to the shops this morning, Chookii had the radio on and they had an excerpt from Kyle and Jackie O's show where a girl had rung in and talked about how she lived in the apartment underneath LB, but how over the last few days she has been moving out - so it's all her furniture the paps are taking pictures of.

[girliejones]

Wow - how embarrassing to have your moving house caught up in this and also, how funny to watch the media coverage get it so wrong.

[homonculus]

Leaving aside Fevola for the moment, can we not also drag into this sorry mess all of the other players who helped "circulate" the photo and who didn't say a peep about it

[girliejones]

Leaving aside Fevola for the moment, can we not also drag into this sorry mess all of the other players who helped "circulate" the photo and who didn't say a peep about it?

Nearly as guilty, in my view.

Yes, this is appalling, I agree. And actually really worsens the AFL case about it not being recent. It means they were turning a blind eye, or someone was.

But I must say, my Cretaceous brain can't help but think the following: "here is a young woman who has previously made money from fully topless photo shoots - images of which are readily available through a google search - who is crying foul one week over people seeing a different topless picture taken of her,Everyone woman has the right to determine what and where and who and how. Prostitutes who sell their body for a fee have a right to be protected from rape. This image was a violation, it looks like she was in the shower or something, it very much looks taken without consent. Every person has the right of consent

[homonculus]

Yeah, that last bit was just me venting about something which has bugged me about the whole "WAG" thing for a while. Largely tangential, true, but vaguely related to the "sportspeople are just like any other worker" thing which you mentioned in the initial post.

[lyndarama]

If your job involved working in a public arena for the entertainment of a crowd, and was viewed and examined on TV and the internet, (ie: sports, being a rock star or a matador) I'd imagine your loved ones would go and watch at least some of the time.

[jo1967]

Let's not forget the magazine who printed the photo... If I had ever had any respect for those types of magazines they would have lost it by now.

I think that arranging with the magazine to be paid for the story is easier on all parties than sueing them for invasion of privacy, although she probably won't get as much money.

[girliejones]

Yeah, I have to say I have not been a reader of those magazines for a good long time now. At the time of Princess Diana's death people were saying if you read that crap, you contributed to that paparazzi frenzy, I realised I needed to just stop being part. I refuse to read them in waiting rooms and in hairdressers.

So the problem for me is, I already hold contempt for what they do and who they are. I can't boycott any harder :)

But yes, an outrageous action and then revolting that they profit twice by publishing both sides of a story they created.

[jo1967]

Me too. I look at the covers in the supermarket and wonder who could possibly believe that these magazines really know any of the stuff they claim. Most of it is just rubbish.

[girliejones]

It is. And my view of myself became less harsh when i stopped reading that shit.