Marus Rushford - AIBU?

[Pr1mr0se]

it's admirable that he feels he can raise the topic of school meals and poverty and the campaign seems to be growing wings with the food alliance HOWEVER AIBU to think that given that he is an extremely wealthy footballer with many footballer contacts in similar positions that they should be putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak too?

His PR machine has stumbled upon something that helps his career outside football. They probably went down the list of topical/political subjects and thought this looks like something that could raise his profile. To think anything else is just plain naive. So non of course his now going to put his money where his mouth his. Let’s not give him a sainthood yet.

He could have done what everyone else did and kept quiet.

Instead he put enough pressure on the government to completely change their mind and support the nation they are supposed to be supporting in the first place.

I bet he has donated his own money but doesn’t want to make a big song and dance about it.

Hmmmm.... given that you've got both of his names wrong, I suspect this thread was designed to make people froth. Bad troll.

@arethereanyleftatall

Wow. A good deed never goes unpunished does it. Yabu.

In fact, your stance has made me cross. What a vile viewpoint. So, this bloke, who has done wonders, needs to do more. Fuck me. That'll have other people lining up to help others now won't it?

Good deed? So a series of self serving PR interviews nowadays counts as a good deed. Someone should Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. They are wasting their time actually giving money out.

I'm sure he does give to charity but isn't it great to see a young man using his voice, platform and new privilege to speak about issues going on in this country? Or would you prefer he just dates Instagram models and goes on expensive holidays?

I think he's an amazing young man, and I'm normally cynical about this sort of thing.

He’s a 22 year old lad trying to raise awareness of an important issue. He has a track record of giving his time and money to support important charities and used his influence to lobby the government to get them to do what they should be doing to support vulnerable children.

HOW can anyone criticise this?! It’s beyond me. Yes he has access to wealth due to his career, but that’s not the point. Many wealthy individuals do not do a fraction of this for society.
I have nothing but praise for him and I’d like to see the track record of charitable acts of those that do criticise him.

Even if footballers aren’t inspired to personally donate to charities (bit they do and quite a few set up foundations I think) then their clubs certainly do because it’s bloody good PR.

It is not the responsibility of a footballer to provide a society where Children aren’t in food poverty. It is the responsibility of the state.

Footballers pay a hefty amount of tax, so MR contributes a lot more to the national coffers than a lot of other people!

He's raising awareness. He's obviously a serious young man who realises that's his skill has also brought him unimaginable good fortune in money terms.
Would you rather he was fighting policemen and shagging for Hello magazine

1. It's not his job as a wealthy individual to provide money for the less fortunate. But he presumably pays plenty of tax and expects, quite rightly, that in a wealthy country like this, poor children shouldn't be starving
2. you've got his name wrong
3. he seems like quite a socially responsible sort, so he probably does support charity work. But he can't very well go round saying 'look, I donated X to this charity because a) people will accuse him of doing it for publicity and b) people will insist that it's not enough.

Who'd be a young successful rags to riches story in the UK with attitudes like yours? It sounds like you think he should know his place and should have stayed poor.

@bellinisurge

He's raising awareness. He's obviously a serious young man who realises that's his skill has also brought him unimaginable good fortune in money terms. Would you rather he was fighting policemen and shagging for Hello magazine

‘Causes’ are the new Hello magazine for celebrities.

@HoneysuckIejasmine

It is not the responsibility of wealthy individuals to pay for food programmes for children, it is the responsibility of the government.

This.

And if you research footballers do tend to give to lots of charities etc.

Plus remember Markus has actually been that kid. He worked hard to get where he is and I admire him for sending the message out that it doesn't matter where you start from - you can get where you want to go.

If he were launching a campaign for the public to donate money for free school meals or something, then I might agree with you more. But he's not asking for the public to donate money. He (quite rightly) wants the government to sort it out.

Everything about what you have just written is ridiculous. Titling your thread Marcus Rashford when it isn't really about him at all, the spelling and lastly, the actual argument.

If you want to argue that rich individuals (there's a distinction between rich and wealthy) should be making more charitable contributions, you can do that. Not sure how you'd know what they're doing anyway, but it's a point you can make. But you'd need to do it for all similarly high earners, rather than simply one cohort. Why footballers and not people who earn this level of renumeration in other industries?

Then there's also the point anyway that actually the state should be doing a proper job, and we shouldn't expect to be reliant on rich philanthropists. The solution to this issue isn't Rashford getting Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling involved too.

How much of your income have you donated OP?
Many wealthy sports people donate to charity, they just don't make a song and dance about it.
You have no idea what Rashford has donated, to who or how much.

You mean Roc Nations victory for school meals?

In fact writing a cheque would be the really easy thing to do - takes him seconds to do, not long to earn, no effort at all. What he’s chosen to do is hard, time consuming, and has involved putting himself out there on what was a pretty unfashionable topic.

This is so true. He could probably give a fortune and wouldn't even feel the pinch, and tbh it probably wouldn't go very far either. Devoting his time, energy, name and fame to raising awareness and pressuring the govt to make substantive changes to policy that might pull hundreds of thousands of children out of food poverty permanently is far more laudable, and takes far far more effort. I think he's amazing.

He’s saved hundreds of children from being hungry! I say bloody well done to him.
I would guess he donates money too but if he made it public people like you OP would say he was showing off or doing it for publicity.

Oh - when I read posts by the OP and that @sst1234, I get the same profound irritation / weariness I do when reading the comments section of the DM. However, I a, encouraged that the overwhelm majority of posters are supportive of Marius Rockford’s stance (or however,p OP has misspelled him)

I'm looking forward to hearing about how much of her own time and effort the op gives to charitable causes.

It is not the responsibility of wealthy individuals to pay for food programmes for children, it is the responsibility of the government

Whilst I hate to say it (because I think footballers are paid an obscene amount of money) I reluctantly agree.

This is also why the fundraising for the NHS pisses me off massively. We have all paid tax already for our contribution to the NHS, why should we then have to pay again out of our own money. Its the governments responsibility. To me, its like paying rent to your landlord to live there, then them asking you to donate your own money to replace the fridge, or fix a leak or every time it needs a repair.

Juan Mata, a teammate of Rashford's set up a charity (think its called Common Goal). He has asked footballers to donate 1% of their earnings to charity.
I don't think many people know about it and I don't think that many players contribute either. Everyone seems to know what Rashford has done so I think it's pretty brilliant what he has achieved.

Why do people pick on footballers? Someone had it right when they said it’s because they grew up working class and are now millionaires and for some reason that’s not allowed, they should stay in their box.

Plenty of super rich people in this country who are rich from absolutely no talent at all, yet people always go for the footballers.

But yes, it’s the Government’s job.

YABU

There is nothing unreasonable about what MS is doing whatsoever. I wish more people would call out the government for their shitty behaviour.

With a government made of self serving pricks making the wealth gap ever larger you complain about a young black man using his platform to help children in poverty. Yeah you are very fucking unreasonable.