We ask this question after seeing two players from different footballing codes fall back into old habits over the past week, having previously appeared to have turned the corner following some pretty serious mistakes in their past.
The first, of course, is Luis Suarez – the brilliant Liverpool and Uruguay striker who appears to have a problem with biting people among other things. Back in 2010, Suarez was suspended for seven games for biting the shoulder of PSV defender Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax in the Netherlands. Three years later, having moved to Liverpool, he received a 10-match ban for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic – having already received an eight game ban shortly after his move to the Reds in 2011 for racially abusing Manchester United’s Patrice Evra.
Despite his shocking record, Suarez had redeemed himself over the past 12 months, not only steering clear of controversy but developing into one of the world’s elite players as he guided Liverpool back to the Champions League and very nearly to their first EPL crown. Incredibly, despite his ban for biting Ivanovic stretching through the first five games of the 2013-14 season, Suarez was the Premier League’s top scorer with 31 goals in just 33 appearances.
But then came the World Cup and as pretty much everyone around the world knows by now, Suarez finds himself back in hot water after biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini. His punishment this time is a four-month ban from all competitive football although the damage to his reputation is surely terminal.
Todd Carney
Meanwhile, in Australia, a high profile rugby league player’s career is in limbo after the latest in a series of off-field scandals. Talented five-eighth Todd Carney was sacked by his club Cronulla on the weekend after photos went viral on social media of him urinating into his own mouth during a big night out. Asides from the obvious question of why anyone would want to commit such a disgusting act, it also beggars belief that Carney would put himself in this situation again following a series of warnings and sackings for alcohol-fueled idiocy over the years.
Having been fired by the Canberra Raiders in 2008 and the Sydney Roosters in 2011, he also looked to have turned the corner after joining the Cronulla Sharks in 2012 and making his State of Origin debut for NSW just a few months later. But he has now been sacked by a third club and his career appears to be over.
Dennis Rodman has never been far from controversy
The list of athletes who simply can’t seem to avoid controversy is a long one. AFL star Brendan Fevola was as talented as they come but alcohol wasn’t his friend and after being fired by Carlton in 2009, he suffered the same fate at Brisbane Lions just 18 months later. EPL star Joey Barton has twice been convicted of assault off the field and three times charged with violent conduct on it during his tumultuous career. NBA great Dennis Rodman’s rap sheet is as long as his heavily tattooed arms with charges of domestic battery, violence and drunken disorder. To this day he continues to provoke with his baffling support of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. And on and on it goes.
Of course, there have been some wonderful cases over the years of bad boys turned good and we love such positive stories when they happen, but sadly they are rare. And when it comes to the question of whether a tiger can change its stripes, this week’s evidence suggests that most of the time, they can’t.
