Some of you may have noticed, on WFC’s sidebar, a link to Kickette.com. Some of you might even wonder why the testosterone loaded, footy dedicated writers at WFC might associate with a blog that specialises in shirtless footballers showing off their perfect 6 pack abs and stylishly gelled hair.
Well, one reason is that they also slip in a few pics of hot looking WAGS, like Abigail Clancy and Sylvie van der Vaart. Did I mention the testosterone? It also occurred to me, that occasionally, a female reader might stumble across us (it’s happened, really it has) and it would be nice for them to find at least one feminine touch in the footy bachelor pad that is WFC. Once in a while, the Kickettes even post something about a footballer that crosses the gender barrier, to give us all a chuckle. Like this. Or this. I’ve also found them a good site to recommend to potential dates who lie whitely about their fondness for footy. Thanks to Kickette, my dates actually do have something to talk to me about.
As Kickette are essentially the TMZ of football, I just never thought I’d be indebted to them for a journalistic gut check. I am, though, and, at this point ladies, I must say thank you very much for the gentle reminder.
Veronica Perroncel
I’ll explain to the rest of you, now, what I’m talking about. As I was skimming through their posts, on my bi-weekly visit, I came across a link to this interview of Veronica Perroncel, by Polly Vernon, in the Guardian. If you haven’t read it, please do so now. I don’t mind waiting; I’m in cyberspace.
When this mess exploded, back in the spring, my first reaction was that the whole thing was completely overblown. I couldn’t understand why so many people were outraged, including Wayne Bridge. The accounts which I read, from more reliable sources, indicated that he and Ms. Perroncel had gone their separate ways. Why, then, was it his business if she decided to take up with someone else? Moreover, why walk away from his international career over the matter? It’s understandable he’d be hurt to find out, from a third party, that a friend had taken up with his ex but, if you’ll pardon the crude terminology, he certainly no longer had any proprietary claims. His actions seemed to be those of a petulant child. To my mind, the only person who had been wronged in this affair, had been Mrs. John Terry, who was strongly considering going back to being just plain Toni Poole.
It never occurred to me that nothing at all may have happened. The assertions of the affair were so widely reported that I just took them for fact. It’s true, as Ms. Vernon notes, that Ms. Perroncel never stopped denying that she and John Terry had been anything other than friends. It’s true, too, as was trumpeted in every rag that covered the scandal, that you inevitably hear those same exact words from guilty parties. Yet, neither in the UK nor here in the US can anyone be legally convicted of guilt by association. I should have known better.
No good deed goes unpunished?
What is also noted in the Guardian interview is that Terry panicked, going to court and trying to get an injunction against the tabloids. The cynical assumption, which we all have unfortunately been conditioned to make, was that the Chelsea captain was trying to cover up. As the judge in the case pointed out, his reputation was not only a personal concern but, with his commercial endorsements, a financial one. That his reaction would be one of a person who, through trying to help a friend, was faced with losing that friend, another and, potentially, his marriage was not as entertaining a prospect. Therefore, it was easily shunted out of sight and mind.
When the more reticent Ms. Perroncel simply remained out of the public eye and refused to accept a monetary award for telling her side of things, that was also taken as ‘proof’ that the tryst had indeed taken place. It’s a given, in the media, that the guilty either loudly proclaim their innocence or run and hide, to avoid the shame. That those are the only two choices available and thus the innocent act in the same fashion, is immaterial to the Rupert Murdoch’s of the world.
Smut sells and virtue is boring.
Max Clifford demonstrating the definition of redundancy.
In reading the entire article, I found myself questioning why Ms. Vernon was repeating all the lurid allegations that various ‘reporters,’ in myriad publications had made and why she quoted so much of Max Clifford’s hubris. Being not fully recovered from my gullibility, my first thought was that she was trying to have her cake and eat it, too. The more I considered her motives, though, the more I realised how far western society has traveled down this ridiculous road. Somewhere along that path, the truth has been dropped in the gutter and forgotten.
The business of making mountains out of mole hills has become incredibly profitable. You can’t blame the press for trying to sell papers, though. Everyone is a sucker for a juicy story, so why not?
The public is just as much to blame for the changes in a journalist’s responsibilities. We want to be entertained. Therefore, it’s become the reporter’s job to tell an engaging story. Yet, it remains up to the reader to realise when he or she is being sold a bill of goods.
Ms. Perroncel, who as the Guardian takes great pains to point out, did not finally come forward for money but to try to prevent her children from someday reading all of this speculation and, without her own version of events on record, take it all for the truth.
For my part, all I can say is that there is no damning evidence against her. I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt and wish her peace and happiness in the future. I’m not sure that she’ll find it, as she wishes, with Mr. Bridge, of whom my original opinion has only been re-enforced, but she knows her own heart and his much better than I.
Discussion
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