First of all, football is not a “contact sport”. Boxing, Rugby football, American football, Lacrosse, Judo, Tae-kwan-do, Water polo; these are contact sports. Football (soccer) is not a contact sport as any contact is minimal and incidental to the game.

Second, as I understand the incident, it was not part of the normal run of play, but was as a result of a decision to penalise him; in other words, it was unsportsmanlike conduct.

Yes he is a professional; so what? The rules do not change based on status. Any attempt to deliberately injure someone has to examined and if found to be a cause for concern, the person concerned should be punished. Behaviour like this is wholly unacceptable at any level, and professionals should be held to a higher standard.

I could question your assertion that these players are “super talented”; personally I feel that there are far too many players that have over blown egos without the skills to justify their beliefs. You may think that these people are paid to play; you could not be more wrong. They should play because they WANT to play; they are paid to spend their time improving their skills to make themselves better players.

People do pay to watch sport and in many cases, it is a great deal of money. Most do not want to see men throwing temper tantrums that would be unacceptable in a 3 year old child. If someone pays good money for a product or service and the standard is not acceptable, they can demand an explanation or redress of their grievance; there is nothing “daft” about this, it is the law.

Could it be that public outrage in the UK will have little impact on African politics?

Eric, you’re an elected representative – what are YOU doing about the situation in the Congo?

It’s part of your job to tackle the issue if you think it’s important.

It’s not your job to tell people what they should and shouldn’t be expressing opinions on.

I also think you’re overestimating the amount of time it takes to send a tweet about Barton. It’s 30 seconds then on with your life.