Former Arsenal and England defender Sol Campbell last week claimed that, had he been white instead of black, he would have been England captain for a decade.

In his recent biography, Campbell said it was the colour of his skin that stopped him leading his country more often (he captained England three times in his 73 appearances).

“I believe if I was white, I would have been England captain for more than 10 years,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Is this man serious? The only reason Campbell was not appointed long-term England captain is because a succession of national team managers decided there were better people for the job. And that’s it.

Players like David Beckham and Michael Owen were not picked ahead of Campbell just because they were white, but because the manager believed – rightly or wrongly – that they offered more in the role.

Has he forgotten that players like Paul Ince and Rio Ferdinand were made England captain at certain points of their career? And unless my memory is playing tricks, they were black weren’t they?

I have a lot of respect for Campbell as a player. He never let England down and was undoubtedly one of the greatest central defenders of his generation. You always felt reassured when you saw his name on the team sheet.

But to claim he wasn’t appointed permanent captain due to race is a ludicrous miscalculation by the ex-Tottenham Hotspur man.

Unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims like this one do nothing for the legitimate cause of stamping out racism in football. They do, however, probably help sell more books.

Headbutt me no buts

When I heard on the grapevine that Alan Pardew had headbutted a Hull player I rushed with great anticipation to catch the replays on television.

In my head I had this mental image of the Newcastle boss squaring up to his opponent on the touchline before planting one right on his face – blood, teeth and broken noses scattered all over the pitch.

Imagine my disappointment then, when I actually saw the incident in question: not so much a ‘headbutt’ as a ‘tilt the head down and use it as an implement with which to push another person away in slow motion’.

You’ve got to love how the media over-hype these things.

Having said that, I won’t try to justify what Pardew did. In the past I have always stood up for him on the basis that I like to see a manager with passion and desire who is not afraid to get stuck in.

But getting physical with opposition players is taking it too far and I think Pardew would be the first to admit he let himself and his club down with his moment of madness. There is a line between passion and thuggery, and unfortunately for Pardew, he crossed in it full view of the television cameras.

His club acted swiftly, fining Pardew a hefty £100,000 for his stupidity. That was followed by the inevitable FA charge that will probably result in a lengthy stadium ban. Both those actions are absolutely right.

However, I don’t subscribe to the point of view that he should have been fired or even kicked out of football entirely as some overly dramatic observers have suggested.

Players get away with making idiotic mistakes time and again. They are fined and banned but nobody ever suggests sacking a player for doing something stupid. Well, rarely at least. Eric Cantona, to pick an obvious example, hardly set the right example karate kicking a fan, but he still returned to the sport.

Pardew was wrong, has admitted he was wrong and will get an appropriate punishment for being wrong. Then, hopefully, he will return to the touchline as a calmer and more sedate version of himself.

In the meanwhile, all those people calling this a ‘headbutt’ need to take a reality check. Walk into a rough pub in a dodgy area of any major British town and knock over someone’s pint.

Now that’s a headbutt.

Stay calm and keep watching

It’s about time people realised that performances in meaningless friendlies in the run-up to a tournament are no indication of what will happen when the real business starts.

England were dull, dire and desperate in their unconvincing 1-0 win over Denmark, lacking energy, effort and enthusiasm. Only an utter fool would claim otherwise.

But those people treating this performance as a gauge of what will happen in Brazil are ridiculously wide of the mark.

I’m not suggesting England will be brilliant this summer (they will struggle to make it out of their group, in my opinion), but I have zero doubt their performances will be immeasurably better than last Wednesday’s.

Friendlies are exactly what the name suggests – casual opportunities for the manager to have a look at players they may not otherwise have chance to see up close.

In fact, I would go as far as to suggest that the 90 minutes of pitch action is actually less important than the time the manager gets to spend with the squad in the build-up.

I’m not a big fan of England manager Roy Hodgson, I think he is dull and dour and his teams generally reflect that. But equally I don’t think it is fair to predict what is going to happen at the World Cup on the basis of a game that means little in the greater scheme of things.

We’ve seen teams go into tournaments on the back of numerous friendly victories only to collapse when the real work begins. And others have looked useless in the warm-ups but gone on to win the tournament.

Reading too much into any non-competitive football match is just plain silly.

Petulant petition not big or clever

I’ve been saying this for a while now, even when some believed he was a star in the making: Tom Cleverly doesn’t have what it takes to become a top player for club or country.

Can he play football? Yes, of course. Does he try his best when out on the pitch? Undoubtedly. Is he honest and hard working? Absolutely.

The problem is, however, that there is nothing remotely special about his game. He simply doesn’t have any outstanding qualities to set him aside from the rest.

Despite the lad’s best efforts over the past couple of years he has remained a rather ordinary player – he rarely creates goals, hardly ever scores goals and doesn’t offer sufficient defensive qualities to be considered a holding midfielder.

And while there is always the chance that he could eventually turn out to be a midfielder capable of doing one or more of those things (perhaps it would make sense for his manager to reinvent him in a new role), you have to think that if he hasn’t hit form by the age of 23, it isn’t likely to happen.

However, despite my opinion of Cleverly’s abilities, I find the recently launched petition aimed at excluding him from the England World Cup squad to be totally out of order.

By the middle of the week the petition had gathered 10,000 signatures, prompting an angry response from Hodgson, who insisted petitions were not going to influence his squad selection. And rightly so.

Do I think Cleverly is good enough for England? At the moment, no, and probably not in the future either. But does he deserve to be subjected to such public humiliation? No way.

There have been far worse players over the years who have pulled on an England shirt and they did not have to suffer the indignity of a public campaign to have them ostracised from the national team.

Cleverly, for all his footballing deficiencies, doesn’t deserve that.

Freudian slip?

Gaffe of the week has to go to Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini.

Speaking on live television after his team’s excellent League Cup victory over Sunderland, Pellegrini said he was delighted with the win and thrives on the pressure of the job.

“I am very happy, very happy. I love pressure, so I have to manage a big team like Manchester United,” he said.

I understand a lot of things may get lost in translation, but you would think the manager of a team would at least know which team it actually was he was managing.

Unless of course, he knows something that we (and David Moyes) doesn’t…

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade