Caught by the fuzz

Two news stories on the BBC's football website got me thinking this morning.

Firstly, the story of Anton Ferdinand's arrest. The West Ham and England U21 defender was arrested for an alleged assault outside an Essex nightclub.

Secondly, the news that Wales captain Craig Bellamy's assault trial has been postponed.

Why can't footballers behave themselves?

The answer is, I would imagine, pretty simple. Footballers at the level of Bellamy and Ferdinand are, generally, young men of limited intelligence who earn more money in a week than most people earn in a year, two years and in some cases three or four years.

Their jobs give them loads of time off, with a maximum of two matches a week during most of the season, coupled with afternoons off for most clubs.

And so, these super-rich young men have to find ways of occupying themselves, and too often this involves alcohol.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that footballers shouldn't be allowed to go out for a drink. Nor am I naive enough to suggest that drunken nights out are by definition wrong. Some of the best nights out I've ever had have been extremely drunken.

But I would suggest that if you are a famous international footballer, a city-centre nightclub may not be the best place to spend your evenings.

Given the fact that Bellamy especially has a notoriously short fuse, it shouldn't come as a shock that fans of opposing teams, when spotting his ugly mug out and about, give him a bit of abuse.

It's part and parcel of the job - if you're a Premiership footballer, you're in the limelight just like any other celebrity.

What these footballers need to learn is to walk away from trouble. Or alternatively, drink in places where they won't get into scrapes.

The problem seems to be a fairly recent one. There have always been notorious footballers famed for enjoying a pint or twelve, but the obscene amount of money flowing into footballers' wallets in the past ten years has exacerbated the problem.

Bellamy and Ferdinand are just two of the more recent examples. They are joined on the list of bad boys by Derek Riordan, John Terry, Paul Gascoigne, Tony Adams, Paul Merson and Anton's older brother Rio, to name just a few.

Is there any solution to the problem? Not so long as footballers continue to earn disgusting figures for playing the beautiful game.