Legal News: Booze, Hookers and Sausages

By: Bob | April 2nd, 2007

One of the many benefits of being a football fan is that it can enhance your knowledge of the law. Footballers are forever running afoul of the law and their lawyers are forever coming up with ways to save their high priced clients from serious trouble. In the end, no one really wins, but out knowledge of the various legal systems around the world continues to grow.

For example, we now know that it is easier to detect alcohol on footballers and athletes, and not just because they drink more of it.

A Brazilian soccer player who was caught driving while over the alcohol limit escaped punishment yesterday after a Thessaloniki court ruled that there was reasonable doubt about his case. Larissa forward Silva Clayton was arrested on March 16 on suspicion of drunk driving but his lawyer argued in court yesterday that alcohol is detected more easily in sportsmen because their bodies have different attributes than those of non-athletes. The court accepted this argument and found Clayton not guilty.

Try using that argument the next time you show up to work reeking of booze after a night of heavy drinking out on the town. You are an athlete and you don’t even know it.

And then there is the case of Bayern Munich and Germany international Bastian Schweinsteiger. Already burdened with one of the worst names in the history of bad names, he recently sued a butcher who was selling bratwurst under the “Schweini” name. “Schweini” means “piggy” in German, but it also happens to be the nickname of Herr Bastian, who registered the nickname as a brand name way back in 2005. You have to love a player who embraces such a ridiculous name.

Finally, there is the case of a South African police commissioner who thinks that the 2010 World Cup is a reason to change his country’s laws. Jackie Selebi submitted a proposal to the South African Parliament this week calling for the country to follow the lead of Germany by allowing prostitution and public drinking to be legal.

“I want you to apply your minds to my dilemma of what to do with the thousands of soccer hooligans expected to imbibe in public spaces and those who would feel the urge to try out other more exotic pastimes both currently illegal in South Africa”, the Police Commissioner pleaded.

Indeed, that ought to solve the problem.