A plea for honesty

Sorry, but Phil Neville. Great professional, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.

Hmmm.

On Saturday, playing for Everton against Tottenham, there was one incident where he brought down a Spurs player and a free-kick was given. "No, no," says Neville, with the customary footballer's finger-wagging denial, "no, no, no."

But, quite clearly on the TV replay: "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."

The trouble is that footballers of this ilk (and that's pretty much all of them) have no truck with honesty. Why waste their time with that when they're always trying to get an advantage, however tiny, over their opponents? And the poor referee has to sort it out.

It was all so sadly familiar with Neville. Remember Euro 2000 in France? England had led Romania 2-1, but it was 2-2 with only a couple of minutes left. As Romania pushed forward, in stepped Neville to bring down Moldovan in the penalty area. As Neville pointed at the ball (his meaning obvious - that he got the ball, not the man), the referee - quite rightly, as replays showed - gave the spot kick, duly scored by Romania to send England home early.

Let's have a bit of honesty.