Most entertainment industries, and football is no longer a competitive sport but rather a corrupted spectacle, select their best actors for the major theatrical extravaganzas.
Ah! But the Premier League is different.
On a day with huge global television coverage due to both the holidays and the absence of many other leagues, the EPL gave us Lee Mason to ruin one game (Mason lives just fifteen minutes from Old Trafford and is yet to referee a Man Utd defeat) and PC Martin Atkinson who, in his old day job, could have arrested Mario Balotelli three times in the first half for actual bodily harm but chose instead to try to keep his beloved Chelsea's 4th place hopes alive instead of applying the rules of the game.

Newcastle's 20 year-old striker Nile Ranger today denied assaulting two revellers and two police officers during a night out in the Newcastle city center. Nile Ranger - in court again today The Londoner faces charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Stephen Simpson and David Armstrong.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that Nile Ranger fits more than one category for me liking a football player; his criminal past, appearance of a west coast rapper and general behaviour is something that I am generally fond of. But after the recent spout of charges and behaviour problems I now find this kid intolerable.