I came to the United States many years ago. In my native born country, football which is called soccer in the US here is the king. There was in my native country an incident that took place when the then president called an emergency cabinet meeting. When everyone has gathered, it turned out that two ministers were not in attendance, At that time in human history, there was no cell phone nor text communications. So some people were dispatched to fetch them.
On arrival, the agents were told that the two ministers who were bodies have gone to the national stadium to watch football. Of course the agents headed to the stadium and pulled them out. They were no doubt embarrassed about the incident. Later the president told some people that he was not mad, but frustrated and that if not for the developments, he would have been there too because it was the continental play off game.
With that background in soccer/football. My arrival in the States created a dilemma for me. Fellow country men who have settled before me began to indoctrinate me into American football, but they knew l was having difficulty accepting it. But they were saying to me, if you stay long enough, you will understand it, and then accept it. That was exactly what happened.
I still consider myself a novice despite having raised two children who played the game, and hoping the youngest in the family will get recruited to the college level to help cement my knowledge of the game. Despite being a novice, l consider myself a football junkie. I cannot get enough of it. In fact, it caused my wife to get a new TV to replace old one in the bedroom for herself so that she does not have to fight with me in living room.
Now this new love that l have for American football has led me to question national Football League's indiscriminate punishments handed to players who ran afoul of the sportsmanship sports in general require.
I woke up early this morning and went for the espn app in my phone to check scores of last night's games. I was more interested in NFL's response in the malicious hit that Gronkowski delivered to Buffalo Bills defenseless player last Sunday. To my astonishment he was only suspended for one game in such a blatant attack on a defenseless player.
This type of punishment makes mockery of the NFL's slogan that player's safety is of utmost importance to them. A guy lying face down, outside field of play, was viciously attacked, and all the attacker got was one game suspension. It is an insult to injury to say the least.
And yesterday game between Steelers and Bengals, another player was also injured and may be paralyzed according to some sources. I am certain the Bengal player who committed the act will get no punishment or be barred from football altogether.
What l am leading you to here is that Ray Rice had issue outside football, which l do not condone, but he was rendered jobless, Elliot with similar issue convicted or not was given six game suspension and still has a job. Gronkowski attempted to separate a guy's head from his body, outside the field of play, but was only given one game suspension.
The fact remains that NFL's decisions when it comes to handing out punishments to players is racially biased and is tilted in favor of white players. If Gronk were black, he will be called a thug, a dog and possibly banned for the rest of the year.
It has come to the point the players union must fight and obtain the rights for players to sue other players in a court of law for the kind of malicious attacks that occurred outside the field of play this past weekend. That is the only way such madness can stop occurring in future games.
Cosmas Onwumere.
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