Aeris Houlihan: The FA needs to move with the times and shake off preconceptions about male-to-female athletes

On the surface, things appear to be moving in the right direction on the subject of LGBT rights in UK society. Just today it has been revealed that, following the passage of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act in July 2013, same-sex weddings in England and Wales have been given the green light to take place from the 29th March next year.

Things are progressing in the field of UK sport too, with Olympic medal-winning diver Tom Daley, one of Team GB's most charismatic and best-loved athletes, revealing last week that he was in a relationship with a man, an announcement welcomed with mostly open arms by fans, figureheads and fellow sportspeople.

When it comes to the relationship between UK sport and trans athletes, though, we cannot say we're progressing quite as steadily.

Just this week Aeris Houlihan, a transgender female from Leeds, has gone public regarding her failed request to play for her local football team, Middleton Park Ladies FC.

The 32-year-old applied to the Football Association in June 2013 for the right to play for the team, and after being asked to provide a doctor's letter verifying her hormone levels - which she duly did - was allegedly ignored for five months, before being told she couldn't play until her sex reassignment surgery has been completed for at least two years.

Given she is scheduled to have her operation in March next year, this means she won't be able to play competitively until March 2016.

Though the rule is supposed to minimise any gender-related advantages while playing football, this cast-iron ruling doesn't take into consideration that Ms Houlihan has "lost all the testosterone advantage males have and I'm far too weak to play for the men's team."

She adds: "The FA didn't even bother to look at my hormone levels or my blood test results, which are the same as any other woman's. They are blind and need to look at the evidence in front of them."

Though the FA isn't particularly known for being at the forefront of LGBT issues, it is not alone in its stance on male-to-female athletes.

This year, we've had the case of Fallon Fox, a M2F athlete whose decision to compete in women's MMA competitions led to a male athlete, Matt Mitrione, labelling her an "embarrassment" and a "lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak". Ultimately Ms Fox was allowed to compete in women's bouts.

The two-year rule currently implemented by many sports associations derives from the International Olympic Committee, who in 2004, stipulated that they must have legal recognition in their country, hormone therapy to "minimise gender-related advantages" and proof of at least two years of living in their "newly assigned gender" after sex reassignment surgery.

This rule has split opinion in the science and in the sports world. Some welcomed the rule, like Helen Carroll, sports project coordinator for the San Francisco-based National Centre for Lesbian Rights, who claimed it "set a precedent for other organisations", which in turn allowed M2F sportswomen like golfer Mianne Bagger to compete professionally.

Others, like Kevin B. Wamsley, professor of sport history at the University of Western Ontario, criticised both the original rule and the 2012 amendment, which, rather than using invasive procedures, stipulated that female athletes with levels of testosterone that reach a man’s normal level will be barred from competing with other women if it is found that the athlete’s body is responsive to androgens.

"No matter what they call it, it’s still a sex test that’s all about judgments and so much more about social values than science," said Mr Wamsley, the former director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies. "They don’t need this test, and I think they should get rid of it."

The rule is indeed flawed, and its blanket adoption by so any sports organisations worldwide, including the FA, seems to go against the actual science and circumstances of each individual athlete. In Ms Houlihan's case, her blood tests indicate levels of oestrogen and testosterone akin to that of a woman, facts corroborated by her doctor. She is legally a woman, as stipulated by her UK passport and driving licence.

Yet, the fact of the matter is, Ms Houlihan is unable to engage in an activity as simple as playing Sunday League football with members of the same sex as her for at least another two and a half years, because of a rule founded on the somewhat archaic assumption that males' physiques will always be inherently stronger or faster than a female's, and adopted, in absence of anything more concrete on the subject, by a sporting body unwilling to use any consideration or discretion in the case.

The FA website, on its LGBT Football page in the Rules and Governance section, claims it will "Identify boundaries within football that prevent LGBT people from engaging with the sport and ensure that every opportunity is given to enable members of gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans communities to participate and progress within their chosen area of participation in football".

In light of Ms Houlihan's case, it's time for the FA to step up to the plate and ensure this is done.

Shutting down Ask.fm won't make cyberbullying go away - a wider, roots-up approach to the problem is needed

The tragic case of Hannah Smith, the teenager from Lutterworth, Leicestershire who committed suicide on Friday 2nd of August after being subjected to atrocious cyberbullying on the website Ask.fm, has prompted a lot of soul searching and accusations amidst the grief.

For those who don't know, Ask.fm is a social media website which allows users to post messages to other user's profiles, which are displayed in the form of a public wall.

Whilst a substantial proportion of those tend to be from people whose profiles are visible, the main concern over the website is the option to post anonymously. For this is when people, using the cloak of anonimity, are given free licence to let rip with vitriolic and abusive comments.

Going on the Ask.fm page and clicking one of the very first profiles displayed instantly brought me to anonymous messages such as "you're a gay f****r, f*****g your own grand dad in his grave? lmfao sit your ass down before i f**k your mum and sister" and "you better watch your step you little f**k... you are going to find me? lol Go ahead you little c**t". Meanwhile, a random click on a female profile gave me this: "You (and your friends) are ugly f*****g s***s! You think your So amazing but your really not... everyone actually hates you! Your all worthless t***s".

When you consider that the majority of users are teenagers, who are potentially more prone to the damaging effect of offensive and abusive comments such as those above, you realise just how problematic and dangerous this setup is.

Worse still, Hannah Smith isn't the only victim of cyberbullying on Ask.fm to have taken her life - another three deaths have been attributed to the website in recent months in the British Isles: Ciara Pugsley, a 15-year old from County Leitrim, Ireland, committed suicide in September 2012, while Erin Gallagher, a 13-year old from Ballybofey, Ireland, took her life a month later. Both were cyberbullied on Ask.fm. Joshua Unsworth, a 15-year old from Lancashire, also took his life, in April 2013, after being subjected to horrendous abuse on the site.

The problem with cyberbullying of an anonymous nature is that it's hard to hold anybody to account, hard as people may try, so essentially, young, promising lives are lost in the blink of an eye, and there is no justice for the families who are forced to live the rest of their lives without closure. It's a growing problem which has impacted on a substantial percentage of young people - Tarapdar and Kellett's study in 2011 shows that "38% of young people have been affected by cyber-bullying".

The finger is currently being pointed at the Ask.fm platform itself, with petitions demanding its closure drawing tens of thousands of signatures on Change.org and even the government e-petitions website. More recently, companies have started withdrawing adverts from the website in disgust, which could potentially put financial pressure on the page.

However, we must consider this: even if Ask.fm is shut down completely, what's to say another platform won't take its place within a couple of days with the same format, ie anonymous posting? Ask.fm began in 2010 as a rival to Formspring, another social Q&A website (itself judged responsible for widespread cyberbullying and a string of teen suicides in the US) - it may be the biggest, but it's not the first one, it's not the only one, and chances are it won't be the last one.

Rather, a wider approach is needed to tackle the scourge of cyberbullying. There are three things which need to be considered in this: accountability, safeguarding, and education.

Accountability, ideally, would come in the form of ensuring social media platforms are run on a member-only account format. The vast majority of abusive messages on Ask.fm come from anonymous users, so if every member had to have a login, chances are people may be more careful about what they post.

This, however, is easier said than done, given the open and public nature of the internet. One government cannot realistically demand that every website out there, particularly those visited worldwide, change its modus operandi. Besides, anonymity is one of the key features which makes Ask.fm so popular - many users find this liberating, being able to ask people random questions, perhaps saying they're attractive, or just being silly and cheeky without worrying about being judged. This in turn attracts them to the site, and you end up with a "social media migration" whereby their friends and peers "settle" into the website, creating an account and using it regularly.

Even if our government stopped UK-based IPs from logging onto those websites anonymously, who's to say those who have accounts won't get cyberbullied by anonymous users from abroad? The only suggestion I would have is to block all UK-based providers from even accessing websites who don't commit to non-anonymity, but this may potentially be dismissed as draconian and setting a precedent with regards to freedom of internet access.

Which brings us to our second point - safeguarding. If anonymity online cannot be quashed, then it's crucial for websites to ensure that abuse can be reported promptly and discreetly. Just a few days ago, Twitter introduced an in-tweet abuse report button.

This also has its own issues - often, IRL (in real life) bullying actually spills over to social networks like Ask.fm - those bullied could very well know who's sending those messages, the anonymous cloak ensuring there is technically no proof of this, and any attempt to report the abuse or even, as put by many commenters on some newspaper comment boards, to simply "stop using the website(s)", could have repercussions in real life, in the form of targeted abuse or humiliation for daring to report them or leaving the website.

So the third point, education, is important when the above two still don't yield a solution. Educate both youngsters and adults about the perils of cyberbullying, which sites they should ideally steer clear of, allow open three-way conversation between parents, teachers and pupils that takes the opinions of all into account, teach youngsters how to become responsible internet citizens and propagate knowledge of how, if places like Ask.fm are to still be visited, to use them wisely and know what to do to report any abusive content. And since cyberbullying and real-life bullying are often interlinked, more efforts need to be made to address the latter as well.

Crucially, adults need to stop churning out the age-old "if you get bullied, just leave the website" mantra, which has a negative effect on the bullied party, like "it's that simple, you're an idiot for not doing it", and their inability to do so means that they're effectively do something wrong - the last thing they need. It lacks empathy and understanding. It's not as simple as that for teenagers, bearing in mind how much peer pressure they have to deal with, and how they feel the need to be accepted and be with the "in" crowd. Just like "walk away from bullies" or "report the bullies" back when I was at school wasn't as simple as it should theoretically have been, neither will leaving a website, particularly when the bullying is done by someone they know and have to put up with regularly.

The death of so many young, promising teenagers at the hands of cyberbullying on social media is a modern-day abomination and needs to be addressed swiftly, thoroughly and promptly, but we need to stop viewing the likes of Ask.fm as simply engines of bullying, where getting rid of it will magically make the problem go away. It, and other social media, should rather be viewed as an extension of bullying, and as thus, we need a total, roots-up approach to match the problem, both online and in real life.

Robbie Rogers' heart-warming story confirms changing attitudes in football

This year, on the 15th of February, at 1am, in a London apartment, one man made a decision to post a honest, heartfelt confession on his personal blog.

This man, a young yet accomplished professional footballer once on the books at Leeds United, had been well aware of what this confession might have done to his career, bearing in mind the track record he was up against. A career which he had painstakingly developed since he was a child and had taken him to the proud heights of representing his country, the United States, at international level.

Despite all this, he was suffering. "Secrets", he wrote, "can cause so much internal damage", and his secret was causing him so much anguish that he made the incredibly brave decision to sacrifice all he has worked for, to forsake his career, in order to release this secret and render him, in his words, a "free man".

On the 15th of February, at 1am, in a London apartment, Robert Hampton Rogers, aka Robbie, came out as gay.

Robbie must have been aware of the only other professional footballer in Britain to come out. Justin Fashanu, once of Notts County, Nottingham Forest and Norwich City, publicly declared he was gay on the 22nd of October 1990. Since then, his career was never the same. He received abuse not only from the fans, but also from established football figures. His own brother disowned him, and as far on as 2012, he sensationally declared Justin was not gay at all. The troubled younger Fashanu sibling was driven to despair and, ultimately, suicide.

Was all this what was to await Robbie once he too came out? It was too big a risk to take, and as such, he announced his retirement from professional football at the same time as his confession. He finished the post with, "I am a free man, I can move on and live my life as my creator intended." Clearly he didn't feel that he still had a role to play in football.

The footballing community, however, had other ideas.

Within hours of the announcement, there was an outpouring of support for Rogers. Many US stars, such as Carlos Bocanegra, Stuart Holden, Oguchi Onyewu, Brad Guzan and Kasey Keller all tweeted messages of pride and respect at his coming out, as well as sadness about his retirement. In the UK, Robert Snodgrass, Clarke Carlisle, Ross McCormack, Alex Bruce and Gary Lineker, among many others, also publicly expressed their support.

Rogers himself was taken aback by the reaction, tweeting: "Thank you everyone for all of the support and love. Wasn't expecting this."

Since the initial reaction, he tried keeping a low profile, but this was difficult - the story marked a turning point in the football zeitgeist.

Since the dark days of yesteryear in which Justin Fashanu played, the attitude towards the LGBT community in sport has changed within the UK and US. Over the last few years, negativity and misinformation has slowly been making the way for tolerance, acceptance and, crucially, indifference - not seeing coming out as a big deal at all, which is the pinnacle of inclusion.

Prior to Rogers' coming out, support towards homosexuality in football came in many forms - the likes of Anders Lindegaard and Joey Barton have publicly talked about the subject and supported the prospect of a fellow footballer coming out. In January 2013, Matt Jarvis of West Ham conducted an interview and posed for pictures in Attitude magazine.

A survey by Staffordshire University showed changing attitudes in the stands too, outlining that more than 90% of football fans would not hold any hostility to a footballer coming out. Meanwhile, major clubs like Liverpool and Manchester City began initiatives in support of the LGBT community.

All of this, though, was mere preparation to the ultimate litmus test - what happens when a player actually comes out? The results, in the form of the public reaction to Rogers' coming out, turned out to be heartwarmingly positive. So much so that, in an amazing turn of events, Rogers began training with LA Galaxy at the start of May, and on the 24th, he officially came out of retirement to become a Galaxy player.

The mere fact that a professional player has knowingly put his career on the line to announce his gay, believing it would be over, only to then receive so much support that, encouraged by the positive environment, he overturned his decision in the matter of months, shows just how far not just football, but society as a whole, has come.

Obviously, this isn't the end of it. The culture of football in the UK still holds entrenched homophobic attitudes. But Robbie Rogers' story is testament to the fact that progress has been made, and continues to do so.

Crucially, part of the reason for Rogers' return to football is to become a role model for those who were still living in fear of revealing their sexuality, not just in sport, but as a whole. Initially telling the Guardian in March he "wouldn't want to deal with the circus", he spoke to USA Today Sports in May after his U-turn: "These kids are standing up for themselves and changing the world, and I'm 25, I have a platform and a voice to be a role model. How much of a coward was I to not step up to the plate?"

Even though he achieved so much merely by publicly coming out, his return to football is truly groundbreaking and a reason for celebration, a "Jackie Robinson moment" as Shawn Francis of The Offside Rules tweeted. Rogers now has the chance not only to continue his amazing journey as a professional sportsman, but to be an inspiration to millions of male football/soccer fans and players living in fear and confusion over their sexuality who now have a role model to look up to.

Blame the local authorities, supply chain and retailers for the Bangladesh disaster, not the end consumers

On April 24th, the collapse of the Rana Plaza, a commercial building in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, claimed over 600 lives. It is considered to be the deadliest garment factory accident in history, as well as the deadliest structural failure in modern human history.

The general consensus among those who have been covering and following the tragic story seems to place the majority of the blame on the building's owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, the local authorities who allowed such a poorly built structure to be constructed and for people to work in it, and the retailers and supply chain for perpetuating those conditions for the sake of profit.

However, it seems that an increasing amount of sources have decided to point the finger at the final link of the supply chain: the consumer.

The BBC published a video asking whether "clothes shoppers were concerned about the disaster", with one interviewee declaring that "a lot of people don't even bother to think about child labour or cheap labour", while The Financial Post ran an article entitled "Bangladesh factories: Shoppers turn blind eye as cheap clothes win".

Meanwhile, Sarah Morris, business development director of Trajectory Partnership, had similar scorn to pour on those who buy from such shops: "Just 10% of consumers are committed to shopping ethically. Around one-third of consumers are utterly disengaged from the very notion of ethical shopping".

This is a very simplistic and unfair view and, in reality, the bigger picture is much more complicated than this. It cannot simply be said that consumers know that, when they go into a high street clothes shop, they actively know they are buying goods which have been made using unethical labour and, figuratively speaking, have blood in the fabric, but simply do not care, because they just want to save money.

While the consumer needs to exercise a due amount of diligence when it comes to ethical shopping, it's not always that easy. Although people can be aware of the issues and make a conscious effort whenever they can to purchase goods from reputable, ethical stores, one has to take into account things like employment, commuting, and familial responsibilities, which may leave little practical time, as well as proximity to ethical outlets.

In addition, ethically made garments make up a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the overall $1 trillion global fashion industry, and given the complex web of suppliers and subcontractors involved in the industry's supply chain, it's incredibly difficult for consumers to know if whether a product has been manufactured in safe conditions.

Income also plays a major part in consumers' spending habits. Here in the UK, discount fashion retailer Primark has come under criticism for using one of the suppliers within the collapsed building. But in these austere times, with more and more people struggling to make ends meet and having to downscale their spending habits, they do not deserve to receive criticism for either wanting or needing to spend less.

People can only buy what is put out in front of them and what they can afford, and while some are able and willing to go to great lengths to ensure their purchases are as ethical as possible, we cannot demonise all other consumers who, for one reason or another, end up buying from those other clothes retailers.

So what is the answer? To boycott brands implicated in the disaster? To only buy British? Sadly this won't increase the welfare of sweatshop workers in Bangladesh, rather it will deprive them of a much needed income. The country's garment industry accounts for nearly 80% of its exports, meaning many of its people are reliant on it for their livelihoods.

And of course, anyone who's truly been keeping a close eye on the issue of ethics and welfare in the industry should remember a certain documentary which aired on Channel 4 three years ago, focusing on appalling conditions in sweatshops based in the English city of Leicester.

A disaster of the magnitude of the Rana Plaza collapse cannot be dismissed or swept under the carpet like so many previously - just seven months ago, a fire at a garment factory in Ashulia, outside, Dhaka, killed 112 people. Similar stories of buildings collapsing in Dhaka also killed high numbers of people, mostly involved in the garment industry, in 2005, 2006 and 2010.

The fashion industry shouldn't just wait for consumers to start voicing their concerns about the welfare of the products they purchase. Given the events two weeks ago, it's pretty obvious that the operation is deeply flawed. Its corporations need to band together and implement measures as soon as possible, such as having ground staff carry out audits in the factories, as opposed to merely pushing for them as they've been doing for years with few tangible results. The UK government also needs to step in to ensure more transparency and good conduct in the supply chain to help ensure this kind of disaster doesn't repeat itself.

Social media martyrdom: Lessons to be learnt from the Paris Brown debacle

So, there we have it. The Daily Mail can now add the character assassination of a seventeen year old girl to its illustrious resume. Today Paris Brown, the country's first Youth Crime Commissioner, has resigned from her post thanks to the Mail's digging up of misadvised tweets she posted several years ago. A sad, but perhaps inevitable, end to what was the opportunity of a lifetime for the young teenager from Kent.

Clearly, the Daily Mail's comments about Paris being a "racist" and a "homophobe" and guilty of "hate speech" have sunk into the consciousness of many of those who haven't taken the time to properly analyse the offending tweets for themselves, who would have found, at worst, misadvised, immature posts and inappropriate words straight from the mind of a silly, careless and carefree young teenager who couldn't possibly have known what the future had in store for her.

Ironically, if anyone spent some time looking at some of the comments posted by, I presume, fully grown and responsible adults in the Daily Mail comments sections at the bottom of so many of the articles, teenage Paris' old tweets would probably be towards the mild end of the scale.

There is a video on satirical news site The Onion which discusses how, by 2040, every presidential candidate in the United States will be unelectable to political office due to their embarrassing Facebook posts.

Though a parody, this is exactly what has happened to Paris in this case - her immature and embarassing tweets have caused her to lose office just days after her appointment.

Crucially, lessons need to be learnt from this whole affair to ensure this doesn't happen again. Paris should have known that she was taking up a position in the public spotlight which would have been open to intense scrutiny, and as such, should have been more proactive in wiping her e-slate clean and deleting the offending tweets as soon as she was even thinking of applying for the role.

Likewise, Kent Police's procedures should have included the vetting of all the candidates' social profiles, to ensure that any candidate thrust into the limelight couldn't have been embarassed and demonised as Paris has been.

Ann Barnes, the police and crime commissioner for Kent, stated: "We used Kent Police's vetting procedures, which do not normally involve scrutiny of social networks for this grade of post." This needs to change immediately, to avoid giving predatory media outlets easy ammunition with which to destroy the reputation of anyone who enters the public arena.

As it stands, Paris Brown has had her reputation dragged through the dirt because of things she wrote when she was younger, she's sacrificed a role of a lifetime due to the untenability of her position, and Kent Police has been left embarassed because the whole affair was allowed to happen in the first place.

Paris herself said: "I hope this may stand as a learning experience for many other young people." In today's society, in which online conduct is just as important as real-life conduct, teenagers all over the country would be wise to listen to her words, because as Britain's first high-profile social media martyr, she knows all too well what it's like to have your real-life reputation of today destroyed by your online personality of yesteryear.

Paris Brown: How the media's hypocrisy and outrage led to a nation bullying a teen

Ah, the Daily Mail. One of Britain's most popular and well read newspapers. That bastion of free speech, which in the past has seen it victimise those on benefits, transsexuals, homosexuals, asylum seekers, migrants and many more, now finds itself spitting venom at someone who isn't even legally an adult.

Paris Brown is a typical British seventeen-year old girl from Kent. Now, I don't know her personally, but if you really have to come to a conclusion about someone's personality from social networking, such as Facebook or Twitter, then I would say she is a bit brash, immature, gobby, outspoken, and doesn't think before she speaks, or at least not before she took up the post of Youth Police Commissioner in her region, where media savviness will be crucial.

So, a normal teenager then.

Paris Brown with Ann Barnes, Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent

The Daily Mail has latched on to the fact that her tweets, now deleted, contained material of a sexual nature, of a violent nature, of a homophobic nature, and of a racist nature. The article, published online on the 7th April 2013, asked whether this "foul-mouthed, self-obsessed Twitter teen" was fit to become Britain's first youth police commissioner.

At this point I bet the majority of readers would be saying: "well then, she is totally inappropriate for the job! The Mail is right to condemn her!"

It's at this point that I ask you to consider a few things.

Consider how when you were a teenager, you were careless, care-free, and did or said a lot of stupid things which you regretted, and possibly still regret, as you matured.

Consider the informal gossip you're subjected to and possibly contribute to when you're in the office, or out with your friends, where politically incorrect things sometimes slip out and may even be the subject of a few laughs, but because of the verbal nature of the exchanges, the exact words are then lost in the ether.

And consider the nature of the media and peers that teenagers are subjected to on a daily basis, which will influence their still forming opinions.

Much as it would be good to live in a society where any racist, homophobic, sexual and violent conversations, actions, slurs and thought has been completely and utterly expunged, the reality is, it permeates throughout society.

A prime example is football, a topic close to my heart. Homophobia is still rampant in the sport, and I'm not talking just about the fans, I'm talking about the establishment, which is pushing through reforms at snail's pace, and veterans of the game, such as John Fashanu, who disowned his now deceased brother Justin for being homosexual, and to this day simply dismissed the whole affair as a lie, saying "he was not really gay".

Now, I dislike Paris' use of the words "fag" and "faggot", they're horrible words, but I seriously doubt she's the only one in her peer group, or her college, who's used that word in a derogatory context. Don't blame the one person in the spotlight, blame the wider causes in society that have allowed words like this to become "acceptable" curses. It's a word she would have heard on television, in movies and in class, and if she follows football and listens to radio, she'd likely have heard it when a famous footballer said it on a popular morning programme.

The Daily Mail's sole example of Paris' "violent" tweet was one where her brother hit someone in retribution for giving his friend a black eye. Funny that, as any violent crime reported on the Mail's pages results in a torrent of comments calling for corporal or capital punishment towards the concerned party. If anything, the Mail should praise her for her "eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" approach.

Some of the highest rated comments on the Daily Mail story regarding the teenager

Sexual conversations? Oh well pardon me. Much as some puritans out there would no doubt love to push through Orwellian measures of "abolishing the orgasm" a la 1984, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, so they're not going to stop people, particularly hormonal teenagers, from thinking sexual thoughts, and potentially posting comments of a sexual nature on their newsfeed.

Now, onto racism. Britain has made great efforts to try and eradicate racism from our society. Overt displays of racism or support of racist individuals or organisations are in decline, and you just need to look at such examples as the declining influence of the likes of the British National Party and English Defence League, who 30 years ago were a serious threat to British society, as well as the widespread scorn over Sunderland's decision to hire Paolo Di Canio, who's publicly identified himself as being a fascist.

However, xenophobia still surfaces. The distrust and passive-aggressive attitude for certain elements in society of a foreign nature.

A common one is the view that immigrants are benefit scroungers and only come here and take British citizens' jobs and benefits. Please take a moment to think which media outlets are mostly responsible for this kind of view.

Another one I hear about regularly is the dislike of speaking to a customer service agent based overseas. Many a time I've heard either passive-aggressive comments about wanting to speak to a "British" person and even crudely imitating the agent's accent. Some of Paris' tweets mention the fact that "illegals" on the other end of the phone can't speak English.

Again, this is nothing she wouldn't have heard from people at school, potentially even her adult peers. I've heard people of all ages come out with similar statements. Anti-pikey slurs? I'm sure My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding did a great job demonising the traveller community nationwide.

Interestingly, typing "Daily Mail Gypsies" into a search engine brought out this story on the first page, lovingly entitled: "How to crush a gypsy camp French-style: It took us 10 years to clear Dale Farm but France's ruling have smashed six Roma camps in as many weeks. Guess where the gypsies want to come next".

So, here's a thought. After reading the above, can you guess who it is that helps perpetuate the majority of these ignorant views and sentiments onto society? If you haven't figured it out by now, I'll tell you who: it's the media.

The media that placed the blame solely on Britain's benefit culture for Mick Philpott's manslaughter of six of his children, tarring all benefit claimants with the same brush.

The media that pushed a transsexual teacher over the edge and to suicide.

The media that just couldn't accept that homosexual Stephen Gately's sudden death was not caused by sordid, seedy causes.

The media that regularly demonises immigrants, calling them scroungers, criminals, and unwilling to integrate.

Is it any wonder that, with a media like this, your typical seventeen year old girl, who is still growing and developing mentally, has the opinions that she has? She is merely mirroring the environment she lives and thinks in, one of the hundreds of thousands of teenagers with similar opinions who share their innermost thoughts, no matter how inappropriate, online as if they were just telling a few mates, or as if it was a diary.

The other issue is, of course, the fact that she could have avoided all this outrage by simply not posting what she did, but thing is, the majority of those hundreds of thousands of teenagers post equally politically incorrect or idiotic things every minute of the day and don't get pulled up on their immature, thoughtless tweets, as there's just so many out there.

Generations ago, what a teenager said and wrote only ever had an audience of a few people, a few dozen at most, or in the most extreme circumstances, a few hundred. Nowadays, a teenager's hormonal, immature thoughts are immortalised in the presence of hundreds of millions, and the minute one of those youngsters is put in the spotlight, then out come the claws and the venom, courtesy of the press and millions of people.

Paris is just a teenager. Prior to her getting this job, she was careless and a tad idiotic. She is not a racist, a homophobe, a thug, or a slag. She is young.

After the article was published, the reaction of the Daily Mail readers in the comments section was really something to behold, as people who have never met the girl, who may have had friends, sisters, daughters of the exact same demographic, vented their feelings towards the teenager. The type of people who think it's acceptable to insult the looks of someone who's not even an adult yet, by bitterly spitting "pass the crayons, I want some eyebrows like hers" or "what a scumbag" or even "what do you expect from somebody with a name like Paris?".

The outcry has driven this seventeen year old, who successfully beat 164 other candidates to win this job, to leave Twitter because of the abuse, to be driven to tears in an interview with the BBC as the public and the establishment succeeded in their mission to shame and humiliate a young girl because, years before, she dared to post some misadvised comments on a platform shared by millions of other young people whose viewpoints are directly and indirectly shaped by the media.

So there we go. That's another element which is sadly common in adolescence and in society as a whole: bullying. Something the Daily Mail, along with hypocrisy, has learnt to do very well.

The 39th Game, revisited.

It's been five years since the Premier League proposed a blueprint to develop and promote the league's brand overseas. This idea involved creating an additional round of competitive fixtures specifically to be played overseas, allowing the league's teams and players to showcase their talent in cities around the globe. "Game 39" was the name given to this international round.

Predictably, the news was met with controversy. Fans were dismayed at the prospect of their team playing competitively thousands of miles away, where local supporters wouldn't be able to attend, lest they have the money and time to travel halfway across the globe for the privilege.

Setting a precedent was another issue - what else would the Premier League be prepared to do to please the global market once the initial move of playing competitively overseas was a done deal?

Other criticisms included the logistics, the strain it would put on player and staff, and the fairness of the fixtures - if a relegation-troubled team who would have otherwise survived come the end of the conventional 38 rounds was forced to play Manchester United or Chelsea a third time in the season, while their rivals had easier fixtures.

It wasn't long before the proposal was discontinued. It wasn't just local supporters who voiced their concerns; officials from overseas opposed the blueprints too - Frank Lowy, chairman of Football Federation Australia, said: "FFA rejects the notion of another country playing a round of their domestic competition in Australia and intruding on the development of the Hyundai A-League and the game in Australia". Japanese FA vice-president Jungi Ogara echoed those sentiments: "We are, in principle, opposed to having Premier League games in Japan as we have to protect our league and clubs.

The Premier League is by no means the first sports organisation with a view to promote itself and its assets by hosting fixtures overseas; the National Football League, also known as the NFL, is a prime example of an entity which has not only followed through with this proposal, but has also been very successful in doing so.

The NFL points to several statistics highlighting American Football's success in the UK - a 154% rise in viewing figures since 2006, a 4.3m combined TV and radio audience for last year's Super Bowl, a 32% increase in its "avid fanbase" of two million UK supporters, alongside the fact five live games are now shown on British TV screens a week – three on Sky, and one each on the BBC and Channel 4. In addition, 2013 will mark the first year two NFL fixtures are played overseas in a single season, as Wembley is to host games on the 29th of September and 27th of October.

There are, however, differences between the two sports' setups and global popularity. Unlike the Premier League, which is one of many competing top-level football leagues worldwide, the NFL has a virtual monopoly on top-level American Football. You're not going to find the president of the Japan American Football Association or Gridiron Australia turning down the prospect of NFL games being hosted in their cities because of a conflict of interest or scheduling.

Wembley Stadium now hosts NFL league fixtures

A more appropriate example to compare to the 39th Game would be that of the Supercoppa Italiana, pitting the winner of the league - Serie A - against the winner of the domestic cup - the Coppa Italia - in a competitive fixture which serves as the domestic season opener.

This fixture has been played overseas several times, the first being in 1993, as Washington DC hosted Milan v Torino, as a way to market the league in the USA and draw fans to Calcio Italiano before the World Cup the following summer.

Nine years passed before the Supercoppa was hosted in Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, as Juventus and Parma battled it out in Tripoli's June 11 stadium - the arrangement no doubt an embarassment to the Italian football federation in light of what happened earlier this decade, but at the time a concession made as Al Saadi Gaddafi, the dictator's son, was trying to foster relationships with Italian football.

The following year, East Rutherford, New Jersey - home to many Italian-Americans - saw Milan and Juve compete for the cup, but afterwards, the fixture returned home, as the winner of the previous season's Scudetto saw their ground automatically allocated the game.

That is, until 2009, when, a year after the Olympics, a deal was agreed between the Italian football federation and Chinese sporting bodies to play the Supercoppa Italiana at the Beijing National Stadium.

According to Italian news agency ANSA, Maurizio Beretta, president of the Italian football league, confirmed the arrangement involved playing three out of every five Supercoppe in China, with the 2012 fixture purpoted to have made Juventus and Napoli 1.7 million euros each.

The enterprise involved in bringing the fixture to China, United Vansen International, also agreed a preliminary deal with the Spanish Football Federation in 2012 to bring the Spanish Super Cup to the Bird's Nest stadium. Spanish media reported that the deal, which has a seven-year duration, would net the RFEF around 40 million euros (32.10 million pounds).

So out of arguably the three biggest football leagues in Europe, two of these - Italy and Spain - have either experience of playing their Supercup fixtures overseas, or have signed up to do so. Which leaves England.

The English equivalent of the Supercup, the Community Shield, doesn't have the same prestige as other domestic trophies - several leading figures of the game have dismissed its importance, Mark Lawrenson calling it a "glorified friendly" and Sir Alex Ferguson labelling it a "barometer for fitness".

Now, as friendlies are often played abroad without any issues, if any fixture were to be exported overseas, surely one which is officially a domestic cup final but has the prestige of a friendly surely would be the best candidate?

Other cases for exporting the Community Shield include the fact it's at the start of the season, meaning the players would be quite fresh and that it wouldn't require a drastic change of calendar, that it's between the two most successful teams of the previous season, and that it ends with a trophy being presented to the winning team, meaning the fans abroad don't just get to watch two English teams, but also that one of them will be celebrating and lifting official silverware in front of their very eyes.

Traditionally, the Community Shield has kicked off at 15:00 GMT, although different kick-off times have been scheduled before, such as in 2012 when the game began at 13:30 to avoid potential scheduling conflicts with the London Olympics. Beijing is eight hours ahead of the UK, but this shouldn't be too much of an issue as the match could kick off at 22:00 local time, meaning we'd begin to watch it at 14:00 GMT.

Spanish football will see this year's Supercup played in Beijing

This idea would still bring up issues and criticisms, however. The Community Shield is a popular fixture among fans, which gives them a chance to see their team in action after those dull off-season months. Since moving back to Wembley in 2007, four of the five fixtures played there witnessed crowds of over 80,000 per game, so it's unlikely that all those fans, plus the hundreds of thousands watching on television, will want to see it offshored.

This is a view shared by the clubs' players and management over in Spain and Italy, where the move has already happened - Real Madrid and Barcelona have already said they wouldn't travel to China for the fixture, despite the RFEF having already signed the deal, while last year, Napoli's president initially refused to allow his team to go, before the football authorities convinced him otherwise.

Possibly the biggest issue, which is related to the bottom line of this whole exercise, namely money, has to do with the fact the new Wembley Stadium cost a staggering £800m to build, and the FA is desperate to see the venue used as often as possible and recoup the costs of building it, which just so happens to be the same reason Beijing wants its Bird's Nest stadium to stage lucrative events like the Italian and Spanish Supercups. By this logic, the FA would be foolish to ship this event overseas and deprive Wembley of a high-income payday.

So as a result, although Italy and Spain have already committed to playing their Supercups abroad, it remains to see whether England will follow suit. One thing is certain, though: the line of exporting competitive games has already been breached, and, to the bemusement of the Premier League and FA, they weren't first in, and are in fact now lagging behind, but with the one pioneered fixture being off-limits because of the need to service Wembley's debt, the English football authorities will need to go back to the drawing board to find ways to tap into the global market.