Footballers who like to smoke

It seems England’s rose, Jack Wilshere has been photographed smoking a cigarette on a night-out, but is the whole media whirlwind worthy of the crime?

I thought I’d look at both sides of the argument, and to be honest, I don’t really see what the whole media attention is about. But there must be something about it all.

Firstly, Jack Wilshere seems to be a poster boy for English football and I know for a fact a lot of young up and coming footballers admire and want to emulate what he’s done. The whole youth product and then becoming a star player at your supported club is a very popular idea among very young footballers and when they see their idol smoking it seems to smack of arrogance to me. A kind of a “Yeah, I know how good I am at football, I don’t need to work at it anymore and I’m just going to do stuff that may hinder me.”

Am I the only one who else see’s it like that? Jack is clearly a phenomenal athlete and when I hear of a player caught smoking, it just winds me up considering I don’t smoke at all and I can barely run to save my life. It might be more of an insecurity on my behalf, thinking about it.

On the other hand, it’s none of our business as the public, as long as he fulfills his commitments to Arsenal and can perform to the requirements set by Arsene Wenger, who cares what he does in his spare time? As an Arsenal fan, I’m used to witnessing players with vices off the pitch, Im just glad to see it’s smoking instead of drinking, especially when smoking is much easier to suppress than the other legal narcotic. It’s not like he’s tweeting a picture of himself with a fag in his mouth with the caption “Ha Ha, look what I’m doing” is it?

 I can’t help but think because he is English it is the main reason why it is attracting so much attention. Wayne Rooney still regularly gets comebacks on his smoking habits, it’s not like because they stop smoking England are going to suddenly win the World Cup and become a really good football team, The problems are far more deep rooted, and not because of a fix of nicotine.