The ignorance of Gary Lineker

When I was a girl, footballers had a somewhat limited vocabulary. That wasn’t to say that they were seen as inferior to wordy types – on the contrary, like blind piano-tuners, they were seen as accessing a higher level of excellence in one specific realm which we Normals had no chance of achieving. Thus when they spoke of being over the moon/sick as a parrot, we accepted that their brains were in their feet and happily indulged them. Even when humble hometown heroes were succeeded by flashy feet-for-hire mercenaries from Best to Gascoigne, who were worshipped like deities, their fans wouldn’t have given tuppence for their opinions on any burning moral issues of the day, which was just as well as these idols were linked by a tendency to beat up women. Even now it’s a rare season that doesn’t see a footballer accused of rape.

When taking the knee was all the rage, was anything done to pay similar respect to the victims of femicide? Not once.