Why Rudiger should be left free to slit throats

... or pretend to!

If Antonio Rudiger ever made a throat-slitting gesture in my direction, I might be a little perturbed… but not as perturbed as if he actually came at me with a zombie knife.

The latter act should definitely result in him missing the Arsenal Champions League quarter-finals next month… the former, not so much. He didn’t mean it.

The whole issue of what level of behaviour we might expect from celebrating footballers has been raised again by the actions of 4 Real Madrid players at the end of their shoot-out victory over Atletico in the last round. A UEFA Ethics Inspector has been appointed to investigate them. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

Rudiger is alleged to have rolled his thumb nail across his larynx in a threatening way. Kylian Mbappe grabbed his genitals. His own genitals, that is.

I’ve never been on a football field with Antonio Rudiger but, even from the same safe distance that the Atletico fans were viewing him, I can quickly come up with a list of 20 other things I’d rather he didn’t do to me than gesticulate. And how Mbappe deals with his sweat rashes is his own business.

It’s the idea of football stars as role models that confuses me. I watched a lot of George Best in my youth but I never slept with Miss World. Football heroes are on another planet. They do things the rest of us don’t and can’t do and we kind of love them for that.

Rudiger, Mbappe and the rest are rock stars. If you went to see the Rolling Stones, you’d be disappointed if Mick Jagger didn’t have a snatch at his bits during ‘Satisfaction’… and if you ever got to a Black Sabbath gig back in the day… well, maybe not that!

But the idea that footballers should be the guardians of public decency and decorum is a bit rich… particularly when it comes from fans that have spent the previous two hours aiming any and every kind of abuse at them from the anonymous safety of numbers.

When Atletico Madrid try to claim the moral high ground, football is officially in danger of disappearing down its own sinkhole. If only everyone behaved with the same reverent and respectful restraint as Diego Simeone.

Youthful masculinity is today’s supper party talking point. Adolescence has opened one or two blindsided eyes. I’m not a TV critic but I became a bit too distracted and worried about any of the actors fluffing a line and having to go all the way back to the beginning to feel that the drama really got close to the issues. It’s certainly started a conversation.

This is a playful blog and no platform for discussing what sinister thoughts Andrew Tate might be spiriting into your son’s bedroom when his alerts ping late at night.

This is not that. This is famous testosterone models getting boisterous on bluster at the end of a football match. As I understand it, the Real players actually went to toast their triumph with their own travelling fans, then caught sight of the defiant gestures of a few straggling Atletico supporters and gave a bit back.

There… I’ve written the UEFA Ethics Inspectors’ report for them.

I guess there is a subtle distinction between a goal scorer cupping a mischievous ear to a baying mob and Mbappe getting a handful of cojones, but it is only a subtle difference in the cacophonous context of sports sledging. Football is loud and brash and brazen. As old coaches love to remind us ‘it’s a physical game’ and its banter is in your face and strident.

It’s not something you apologise for. It’s not even a masculine thing. Ask Jill Scott.

There have been isolated instances of acts of football physicality being referred to the courts but we surely all know and accept that most of Rudiger’s challenges would be out of place in a check-out queue at Asda. None of us are on our best behaviour inside a football stadium. It’s as if we become severed from our civilised selves the moment the turnstile clicks behind us. Lumon for sports fans.

It’s a dangerous place. Not least because if the executives in the posh seats fail to rail against headline acts of impropriety, they run the risk of being seen to condone and encourage them. The 21^st century way of covering yourself is to issue a warning at the door that football may contain images of flashing egos and adult themes. I can’t pretend to speak for the parents taking their children to an Old Firm game for the first time but we can’t protect everyone from everything.

Football is not WWE yet but it’s getting there. Every player needs his own celebration. It’s an artform, an expression of self. Give it a few years and Jude Bellingham will win a Turner Prize for one. Toni Rudiger’s chosen meme is certainly in character. Surely we can learn to laugh at it.

I haven’t been in many court rooms (honest!) but they are oddly stark and soulless spaces. Cold judgment of emotional acts is necessary to keep the rule of law. The public interest needs to be protected but mitigating factors must also be taken into account. When 60 thousand Atletico fans have been screaming jibes and threats at you all night, is it irresponsible and inflammatory to repay them in their own currency?

Taking offence seems to be an addictive hobby for some. Like every commentator, I live with the possibility of social media abuse. I don’t mind the haters too much. We are all a matter of opinion and if I can keep JD Vance happy by putting up with a bit of his free speech, so be it.

It’s the internet vultures that spook me… the creatures that circle above you listening out for one word amongst a thousand that might just be interpreted as offensive to peat farmers in the Outer Hebrides. Even peat farmers get pulled up on carbon storage and climate change. Human behaviour that pleases and thrills some invariably shocks and appals others. Balance and perspective left the building some time back.

I think and hope that Rudiger and Mbappe will get a rap of the knuckles and a raid on their offshore bank accounts and be left free to get some more abuse at the Emirates the week after next. I’m not sure they are the kind of guys you really want to rile but I’ll leave that choice up to Arsenal fans.

Football is a wonderfully imperfect world. Perfect behaviour has no place in it.