OLIVER HOLT: People trying to destroy Zouma are lionising dictators

OLIVER HOLT: I hate bullies. I hate animal cruelty. But the people trying to destroy Kurt Zouma are the same ones hailing the arrival of the Saudi regime and their heinous acts in the Premier League

• Kurt Zouma sparked outcry when a video emerged of him abusing a cat 
• The West Ham defender’s reputation has been shattered and his life changed
• Many are calling for heavy penalty but I think he has been punished enough 
• The issue has highlighted a hypocrisy in what causes outrage and what is let go  

Kurt Zouma kicked a cat and slapped it hard in the face and I won’t look at him in the same way again. 

Nor will anybody else who saw the phone footage and heard the giggling and the laughing that was its soundtrack. 

The short film will follow him for the rest of his career. It will embarrass him wherever he goes. Kurt the Catkicker is a soubriquet that will not fade easily.

Defender Kurt Zouma has faced worldwide backlash after video emerged of his abusing a cat

Zouma, has been widely condemned after a video emerged of him allegedly hitting the animal

Zouma will have to learn to live with a new reputation not just for being cruel but for being unbelievably stupid for allowing his brother to film him being cruel. And then putting the footage on social media. 

He has been made a pariah. We are falling over ourselves to do to him — figuratively speaking — what he did to that cat. Some want him sacked. Or suspended. Or banished. Or jailed.

Zouma has been fined £250,000 by West Ham and the club has said it will donate the money to animal welfare charities. Credit to them for that, if it happens. I got my dog from one of the charities after they had nursed her and her siblings back to health when they had been left in a bucket on a doorstep as puppies. 

They do wonderful work. As long as Gold, Sullivan and Brady follow through on their promise, the charities will put their unexpected windfall to good use.

Despite the controversy the Frenchman was allowed to start the match against Watford 

Many feel strongly that Zouma should not have been selected to play against Watford last week, nor in the side that faces Leicester City. David Moyes condemned Zouma’s actions but defended picking him. 

‘We must not forget many of us in life make mistakes and we are hoping people out there give him a little bit of forgiveness,’ the West Ham boss said on Friday.

Moyes is right. For what it’s worth, I am among those who think it was wrong to play Zouma against Watford but I also think he has been punished enough. His reputation is gone, his life changed overnight. 

He is said to be deeply contrite about what he did and hopefully he will educate himself about how to treat animals. Maybe he will volunteer at a cat sanctuary for a time. I hope so. I hope, too, he will be able to redeem himself.

Zouma’s case had a wider significance in sport because it has shone a light on what makes us angry and what we are prepared to forgive and what we simply gloss over. We are a nation of animal lovers and that is one of the reasons why Zouma’s actions provoked such a visceral reaction while other crimes are tolerated and even indulged.

David Moyes defended his right to keep the player in the starting line-up despite the backlash 

I watched a clip on Sky Sports News where two presenters were discussing the Zouma incident in earnest, almost funereal, tones and relaying the latest developments about how some sponsors were suspending their relationship with West Ham because they were horrified that Zouma had not been immediately banished to the outer reaches of the galaxy.

One of the two presenters is a Newcastle fan. It was only a few months ago that he was posting pictures on his social media account — complete with crying with laughter emojis — of cans of beer being delivered to him at the Sky studios so he could better celebrate the purchase of his club by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a body whose chairman is Mohammad bin Salman.

Bin Salman is the man who was responsible, according to security agencies, for ordering the cold-blooded murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. 

Khashoggi, lest you have forgotten, was dismembered with a bone-saw, maybe while he was still alive. His body parts were crammed into bin liners and disposed of. His remains have never been found.

Newcastle fans toasted their takeover by the Saudi Arabian PIF despite human rights issues

And so Sky Sports and the Premier League will fawn over a man like that and welcome him with open arms and fete him and lionise him, and toast him with cans of Stella Artois and hail him as a saviour — Martin Tyler, Sky’s lead commentator, said Newcastle had ‘won the ownership lottery and some’ when the PIF completed their purchase — and in the next breath, they will destroy a man for kicking a cat.

Look, I hate cruelty to animals and I hate bullies and I hate what Zouma did. Kicking a cat and cutting a man up into little pieces with a bone-saw are both bad things but even though I am sure some will find a way to disagree, I would like to suggest respectfully that one is worse than the other.

And yet Bin Salman is now a potentate of the English football establishment and Zouma is an outcast.

Zouma, rightly, is paying a heavy price for what he did but if spending £100 million in the transfer window has made English football forget about the heinous acts of the Saudi regime that owns Newcastle, maybe some way down the line, it can find a way to forgive West Ham’s centre half, too.

Mohammad bin Salman (above) is the man who was responsible, according to security agencies, for ordering the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Martinelli’s red was the right call  

I have long believed Michael Oliver to be England’s most able referee and his handling of Gabriel Martinelli’s sending-off in Arsenal’s victory over Wolves on Thursday night only confirmed that opinion.

Martinelli tried to stop Daniel Podence taking a quick throw-in and pushed him as the Wolves player released the ball, shoving him to the floor. It was an obvious yellow card but Oliver allowed play to continue because Wolves had an advantage.

Martinelli set off down the wing in pursuit of Chiquinho. When he caught him, he pushed him hard in the back and sent him sprawling to the turf. It was also an obvious yellow card. Oliver made the correct decision, showing him two yellows and then a red.

Gabriel Martinelli managed to earn two yellow cards in the same passage of play to see red 

Some pundits professed their outrage about the sequence of events but it’s hard to know why. Most objections seemed to centre on the fact that what had happened was unusual but that is really no objection at all. 

Martinelli is a brilliant young forward, an aggressive player who operates on the edge. 

Much of his play is mature beyond his years but his lack of discipline shows how young he really is. He will learn but on this occasion, he deserved everything he got.  

Wayne’s movie left no stone unturned

The Amazon documentary about Wayne Rooney that was released last week is a compelling study of England’s greatest goalscorer and the pressures he dealt with throughout his playing career.

Some thought it would be a whitewash of his various misadventures and indiscretions but it is the opposite of that. If anything, it is slightly uncomfortable for the way in which it confronts them and it is a better film for doing that.

Wayne Rooney’s new documentary is an honest and frank look at the England great’s career 

I spoke to Rooney, who has made a hugely positive impression in his first managerial job in charge of Derby County, at the after-show party on Wednesday night. 

After-show parties aren’t really his thing but he was in a good mood nonetheless.

It turned out Derby’s Championship relegation rivals Reading had just lost at Bristol City and fellow strugglers Peterborough United had been thumped at Cardiff. Others may have been chatting about Rooney’s greatest goals and the way he ripped France apart at Euro 2004 but he was thinking about Middlesbrough away on Saturday.

Anderson and Broad decision is bizarre  

Being two of England’s all-time sporting heroes should not protect either Jimmy Anderson or Stuart Broad from being dropped from the upcoming tour of the West Indies, but being the two best bowlers available to the selectors should. 

Their omission is as absurd as it is ill-judged. 

The omission of Stuart Broad (L) and Jimmy Anderson 9R) is as absurd as it is ill-judged

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