Wenger support as Hodgson irate over joke leak
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Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger said yesterday he wished everything managers said to their players would “remain in the dressing room” as he reacted to the row surrounding Roy Hodgson.
The England manager apologized after several newspapers reported that he had told a joke, viewed by some as racially offensive, at half-time during the 2-0 win over Poland at Wembley on Tuesday which clinched qualification for next year’s World Cup.
“I have been aggressive at half-time but you have to adapt to the culture of your team,” said the 63-year-old Wenger, who managed in Japan before joining Arsenal back in 1996.
“When you go to a Japanese dressing room you have to be cautious because what looks normal in an English dressing room looks completely shocking in a Japanese one.
“Sometimes you can say words that are not politically correct, that can happen to any manager,” the Frenchman added.
“Secondly we can go a bit overboard at half-time because it’s an emotional situation and there’s a lot of desire and effort in there, but basically it all has to remain in the dressing room.”
According to reports, Hodgson encouraged his players to pass the ball to in-form Tottenham Hotspur winger Andros Townsend by telling a joke about a monkey being sent into space by US space agency NASA.
Townsend, who is of Cypriot and Jamaican descent, insisted on Thursday that “no offense was meant and none was taken!”.
Hodgson, who has apologized for causing any unintentional upset, was furious his remarks had been leaked. “The players are as angry about this as I am,” he told yesterday’s Daily Mail.
Former England forward Robbie Fowler said he doubted Hodgson would ever find the source of the leak.
“Obviously someone’s said something, we’ve not got a clue who,” Fowler said in Singapore.
“It is disappointing — the fact is, he’s in a dressing room talking and all of a sudden it’s leaked. I don’t think he’ll ever get to the bottom of it.”
Damaging disloyalty
The incident also suggests potentially damaging disloyalty to Hodgson in the England camp as they begin preparations for the World Cup in Brazil.
The joke, which is thought to have emerged in the 1960s, is about a US astronaut being sent into space for the first time alongside a monkey — animals had been sent into space prior to manned flights.
The astronaut becomes frustrated the monkey is doing all the work and contacts mission control to ask what he should do. NASA’s ground control replies: “Don’t touch anything — just feed the monkey.”
England’s Football Association has backed the manager over the matter with Chairman Greg Dyke saying Hodgson was “a man of the highest integrity”.
(Agencies)
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