Interesting on the relative coverage & furore surrounding two very similar instances.

Yorkshire CC Captain Andrew Gale missed his teams championship winning trophy presentation due to being under investigation for making racist comments during a match. Today he has been charged. I watch many news & sports bulletins at various times across all broadcasters & the first I heard about this was this morning on BBC Look North.

Anyone got any idea why rugby league was subjected to far more scrutiny & coverage over Hardaker, yet a much bigger sport, and a county club captain has barely rated a mention?

Has it really though? As some people I work with haven't heard a peep about the Hardaker situation.

Perhaps because Hardaker has previous this year? Or maybe because the ECB handled it much better than the RFL and kept it in house and out of the media?

Maybe Cricket fans aren't as desperate and blood-thirsty to see a player found guilty?

The Hardaker first incident received plenty of coverage. Using BBC Look North as the yardstick, the first mention of Gale was this morning when the charge was made against him. Not a single mention of him being investigated, not an interview or comment from anyone featured on the programme.

Contrast that with Hardaker being mentioned on practically every bulletin first time round, then almost the same again on this occasion.

What drives this difference I wonder.

Just seen this on Look North for the first time. The abusive word used by Gale was Kolpak. What next? Will 'overseas player' become a term of abuse? The world has gone PC mad.

What is obvious is that many Rhinos fans seem to have become the Liverpool of Rugby League

I would have hoped rugby league getting a raw deal from the media would transcend club allegiances. What does the 'Liverpool of rugby league mean'?

It means we speak in strange tongues.

Kolpak is a racist term?
There's not really been any media bias as far as I can tell neither case has been given much attention outside of the north.

Probably means that they think everybody is out to get them, their own players are perfect, and anybody who thinks otherwise is a jealous, horrible, bitter "hater".

Kolpak players do tend to be from countries where skin isn't white. Perhaps they thought he was using it when he really meant to reference the skin colour of the player concerned. Laughable.

How many sports bulletins, newspapers, radio stations etc covered Hardaker as opposed to Gale? I think you will find there is a massive disparity in the way both have been treated.

Not true. 10 Kolpak registered players in the county championship this season, only 3 of them could be described as 'not white'

The whole thing is stupid anyway.

Cricket is played in long pants and cannot therefore be classed as a bona-fide sport