On Friday, as he walked off the pitch following a dreadful performance by the England football team, Wayne Rooney - who is paid approximately £90,000 per week by Manchester United - criticised England fans, specifically the ones who booed their players off the pitch after an uneventful 90 minutes of football played against Algeria, live on television:

Granted, the statement was issued in the heat of the moment, and he's since issued an apology - one which was obviously very much 'advised' (you could say forced) - but the simple fact is that it shows the lack of respect these players have for their supporters, fans, and the people who look up to them.

No respect

Over the last two decades the salaries of the players, and ticket prices along with them, have gone through the roof. The respect and humility shown by the players, however, has not. These people who are put on marketing pedestals and who must surely forget that they are role models to tens of thousands of children across the country, cheat, dive, gamble, fight and swear. I'm no angel, but then I'm not a professional sportsman either.

Every sport has it's laws, and those laws are enforced by referees. Referees should command respect, and players should respect the referees, no matter how they feel the interpretation of the enforcement. In most other sports, this is usually how it plays out, but in football, it's not uncommon to see a player run up to a referee, get in his face, and issue expletive-ridden diatribes outlining how they feel about the last call which was given against them.

So, as role models, these people are telling those who worship them that it's okay to act like this on the pitch; it's okay to show no respect to referees or people in positions of authority; it's okay to dive and cheat; it's okay to have no integrity.

It's not okay. I can't imagine many professional rugby players showing a referee the kind of disrespect that seems to go hand in hand with the game of football - not least because they'd spend the next 10 minutes in the sin bin if they did - because they show respect to the referees, sometimes even referring to them as "sir".

Are the referees partly to blame?

I'm sure some of the football referees command respect - I can't imagine many players attempted to show Pierluigi Collina the kind of emotional outbursts that many premiership refs routinely get - but I feel that referees sometimes let things slide because of the potential explosive reactions from fans or other players or, perhaps, out of the fear of making the wrong call.

Referees get it wrong sometimes. They're not omnipresent, all-seeing, infallible beings who know exactly what happens and how, despite what Sepp Blatter, the current head of FIFA, would have you believe. Understandably, players and fans who saw different will react with varying levels of outrage.

Unlike most other sports in the world, however, there is no video replay technology that would allow teams to question borderline calls, or incidents where they had genuine reason to doubt the referee's call. The technology exists, but football refuses to adopt it.

Not really a big fan

I'll come right out and say it - I've never really been a big fan or supporter of football. I was never taken to games as a child, so never really forged a love of the game from an early age like most other people. Generally, I'll show a little more interest than usual when international tournaments crop up - the European Championships or the World Cup - as it's the national side, and it's easy to get caught up in the emotions.

Football as a sport, however, is not one I want to be associated with. It's corrupt, in a dire financial state, and full of players for whom the money and lifestyle is more important than the game itself. My buddy Paul Robert Lloyd has a far more in depth opinion on the state of football, but I'm in full agreement with him.

It'll probably come as no surprise to you, then, that the World Cup I'm more interested in starts next year.