Thread by @shaunjlawson

Regarding Gattuso, and Tottenham fans' huge hostility towards him, I'm a little lost about what makes them special compared with AC Milan (one of the great clubs of Europe), Napoli and Fiorentina (two huge, famous old Italian clubs).

Maybe those 3 clubs let bygones be bygones?

Trial by social media is beyond tiresome. It's also rather creepy - like living in East Germany.

He's a football manager. He's not Wittgenstein. And any society which demands football managers (and footballers) are 'role models' has something very very wrong with it.

There is also context to his past comments, however offensive they are to many.

1. Barbara Berlusconi was in the job because she's Silvio's daughter. No other reason. She didn't take the job at all seriously and got into a relationship with Alexandre Pato, a player at Milan.

Gattuso was actually correct that her promotion was profoundly disrespectful to Adriano Galliani, Silvio's right hand man and the biggest single reason behind Milan's long period of success.

Then we come to the racist chants. Bear with me on this please.

Italian football ultras are well, weird. A law unto themselves. These are people who often don't actually care whether their team wins or loses - many of them are in it for profit. Selling tickets and merchandise, becoming very powerful individuals, running protection rackets.

And the way they behave at football matches is simple: explained perfectly by Tim Parks in the magnificent 'A Season With Verona', the best book ever written on Italian football.

"What's the best way of sending the other side's fans into paroxysms of rage?"

This means that when it comes to chants and songs, NOTHING is off limits to them. They'll sing about earthquakes if they're playing somewhere that had one; they'll sing about tragedies; and sadly, yes, they'll make racist chants too.

That doesn't make it OK. It's just the football culture there (and often in South America too).

So when Gattuso said "there are no racists here", what he meant was: "These people aren't actually racist. They just do it to provoke the opponents". He's mostly right in that.

Is Italy some backward nation compared with the rest of Western Europe? For all its problems, no: not at all.

It just has a very different fan and football culture - which Gattuso has been part of all his life.

We in England are far too quick to judge, hector and condemn.

I can assure you that most of the rest of the world HATES that about us. Hates our post-imperial superiority complex and frequently, our hypocrisy.

For the record: when Paolo di Canio became Sunderland manager and David Miliband resigned from their board, I found it laughable.

He'd already been Swindon manager; no problem, apparently. Miliband, meanwhile, had voted to bomb Iraq, oversaw torture and special rendition... but the political opinions of the manager of his football club were too much for him?!

Please.

Further, while I wanted Glenn Hoddle out for footballing reasons - we'd fallen apart thanks to his betrayal of his players in his bloody book - I was horrified at his treatment when he was forced out for something which had nothing to do with football.

He was as good as sacked by Tony Blair from Richard and Judy's comfy sofa. It left me wondering if Blair would be calling on the Dalai Lama - whose views Hoddle mostly shares - to consider his position.

This is football. These people aren't politicians or businessmen.

True, some footballers are becoming far more political: with Marcus Rashford the leading example. But I really don't care about things people said in the past.

Rino Gattuso is a football manager, not Lucifer. By all means question his record - but the rest of it leaves me cold.