Careless Carlos!

In 2007, Tevez saved West Ham United from relegation by playing when he shouldn’t have due to controversies surrounding his ‘third party ownership’. He is now threatening to condemn Manchester City by not playing at all.
Tevez is paid to play football. He refused.

Such overt insubordination would not be tolerated in any other place of work, on any stratum of the pay scale. Though in a perfect world this would not be the case, astronomical wages and media scrutiny of the Premier League distort the rules of the game somewhat; behaviour deemed unacceptable in general society is exhibited regularly by millionaire footballers.

Tales of assaulting colleagues, abusing officials, sexually assaulting young women and drunk driving appear almost daily in the tabloid press, and, though apparently not a prerequisite, there is barely a player in the national team that hasn’t cheated on his spouse/partner. (Perhaps Walcott, but he is only 22. Give him time.)

But some rules still apply to these privileged young men; maintaining a basic level of respect for those you work with is one of them. Not only is a refusal to play a show of contempt to the manager, it is also hugely disrespectful to the club; as for the fans, all 65,000 in the stadium who had contributed to his salary with their ticket purchases, who had taken him into their hearts despite his history playing for the Unspeakable Other, betrayal is not the word.

Evidently Tevez is homesick, and missing his family. These are understandable concerns, and being trapped between the rock of a club that don’t want to sell one of their prize assets for peanuts and the hard place of an agent that won’t accept a sizeable wage cut to move elsewhere, the striker is as miserable as a ten million pound salary will permit.

In a dressing room as highly-paid and volatile as Manchester City’s, team spirit is a rare and precious commodity; it is surely only a question of time before he is permanently exiled in an effort to preserve the fragile group-bond.

Tevez himself has refuted claims that he refused to play, remarking that it was all a misunderstanding, and he was actually just confused as to what Mancini wanted him to do. As a footballer, when a manager approaches as you are sitting on the bench in shorts and shin-pads, with your team two-nil down and desperate, even if he is mumbling dialect Mandarin, surely it is possible to guess what he might be getting at.

He wasn’t asking Carlos’ opinion on his latest scarf. He wasn’t asking for gardening tips, cooking advice or what to do if his car broke down. He was asking Tevez to do his job.

For the player, however, evidently it was beyond comprehension that Mancini wanted him to actually play.