Is Joe Kinnear Racist?

So the Newcastle manager Joe Kinnear mispronounces a players name and when the affected player says he will not play for the manager anymore, every one believes that this is not a big deal. Why should the black man feel aggrieved that his name was mispronounced?


Now Charles N’zogbia has been aiming to get out of the dysfunctional Newcastle for ages, so his threat not to play for his team and employer unless Joe Kinnear is sacked is a bit of silly business. However the manager should at least learn to call him Charles or Charlie but calling him “Insomnia” was just plain wrong.


I became quite angry when on Sky News this morning, the sports news reader, Charlie Thomas tried to excuse Joe Kinnear’s inability to pronounce his players name as a problem of “men of a certain age” which is a euphemism for “racist old fart who can’t be bothered to learn the name of a foreign black player”. This was the same defence that was accorded Ron Atkinson when he slipped up on air and called Desailly the N-word.


Will N’zogbia be bought by Arsene Wenger after this silly business? I doubt it seriously and I don’t believe that Aston Villa will buy him too. So eventually I think he might eat crow and play for his amnesiac suffering racist manager.