It has always been my contention that footballers are muscle-bound mannequins with the ethical and intellectual capacity of Rhesus monkeys, overpaid and glorified beyond all logic and social value; that football clubs are clusters of selfish, misogynistic, homophobic ego with some gold paint slapped on the outside by PR suits; and that most footballers’ wives are vacuous, moribund clothes-horses whose moral compass hasn’t pointed ‘North’ since they were about 12. And these stories from the past four days do nothing to dampen my faith:

1.Alex Fevola, who back in December 2006 said “her marriage to football star Brendan was over”, has a preening, Wynettesque essay in today’s Herald Sun, so hideously erratic and self-obsessed that wouldn’t sound out of place if you read it on some 14-year-old’s Myspace. According to Alex, Brendan has done very little wrong (pissing on a wall was “insignificant”) and, like, he’s a good footballer and, like, a good dad so get off his case, okaaaay? No mention in Alex’s whine about Brendan jumping a bar in Ireland to belt some guy who refused to serve him. And nothing about his fly-in-fly-out fuckathons with similarly-smitten bimbo Lara Bingle (Alex seems to have developed amnesia since then).

2. Sam Newman, only a few weeks back from a Nine-imposed hiatus from The Footy Show for sexist denigration of a female journalist, opens his heart to tell viewers of his desire to ejaculate on a member of the Tasmanian state cabinet. Worse, he then insults everyone’s intelligence by trying to explain it away as something else, while Nine says that Newman has “done nothing wrong”. Newman’s mate Neil Mitchell will undoubtedly be on-air tomorrow defending him (Mitchell describes Newman as a “cutting-edge comedian”, further proof that the 3AW ego-for-hire couldn’t tell his arse from his elbow, whereas Newman seems to have mistaken his knob for his cerebrum.)

3. Fisherman-with-microphone Rex Hunt is up in arms when the media comes calling in relation to a road rage incident Hunt was allegedly involved in. “I couldn’t care less what people think of me” says Hunt, while refusing to deny that he was involved in the clash where a cyclist received a possible broken finger. Back in 2006 it was revealed that Rex couldn’t care less what his wife thought either, when his ‘cash-for-gash’ exploits (one of Newman’s quaint terms) were exposed in the media. Rex was less camera-shy in 2005 when he was punched by some teenagers in Byron Bay and wanted to share his pain, annoyance and social commentary with the world. Yibbedy-yibbedah.

4. Former Richmond player Andrew Krakouer cops 16 months in the slammer after a vicious assault outside a nightclub, where he kicked his victim in the head repeatedly. If Andrew wants advice on prison life he could call his dad Jim, who served nine years for attempting to smuggle amphetamines across the Nullabor back in the 1990s. When Krakouer Snr. was paroled in 2004, he was feted by the football media as a man trying to rebuild his life and become a good father and role-model to his son. Don’t think it worked somehow.

There are exceptions to every rule and there certainly are to this one. But throw others like Wayne Carey, Gary Ablett, Jeff Farmer, Ben Cousins, Daniel Kerr, Alan Didak, Dean Brogan, David Dench et al into the mix and it becomes apparent that while AFL footballers past and present make up 0.04% of the population, they seem to generate a much greater proportion of crime, scandal and social disruption. The odd thing is that nobody seems to be acknowledging the fact or asking why.