Arsenal central midfielder Jack Wilshere is no stranger to controversy. You’ll remember on December 16th, he gave the middle finger to the Manchester City crowd during Man City’s 6-3 beating of the then first place Gunners. (Picture is above) It was surprising, as Jack Wilshere, a member of the England National Team should know better than to send the hand gesture equivalent of “f** you” and/or “go f** yourself” to the Etihad Stadium crowd.
Wilshere is making headlines for the wrong reasons again. This time due to his smoking. Again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to condemn anyone for smoking. There’s no reason to play moral police on this issue. There’s much bigger vices in the world.
But the Gunners boss Arsene Wenger is not a big fan of this, and that’s the issue. Wilshere was caught smoking in October, but vowed to quit. He returned to training today after being photographed smoking while on vacation in Las Vegas, Nevada while on vacation with City and England goalkeeper Joe Hart.
Former Arsenal left-back Ashley Cole, who was caught with a cigarette last year while on holiday, encouraged Jack Wilshere to follow his lead and quit smoking.
“Everyone talks about footballers having to be professional and be an example, but we don’t know if the smoking affects him (Wilshere)
“Of course I am not condoning smoking. We don’t want smoking. I have smoked before, I have stopped.
“It didn’t really affect me the way I run but of course it’s not a good thing to do in public. But he is a young lad and he will learn.”
Again this is anything but a capital crime, but Jack Wilshere should know better. Given his stature, and the fact that the offseason provides ample opportunity for players to get into trouble as teams are off and sports media have to find news somewhere (kind of like me right now posting this story!).
Or as former Gunners boss George Graham told TalkSport:
His career has not gone anywhere in the last 18 months. The papers now want any sort of publicity of players misbehaving and he has got to get his act together.”
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports and Yahoo! The Postgame. He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world. Banks has been featured in numerous media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, NBC, the History Channel and more. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)