If he was going to be deregistered by the RFL I agree HKR should sack him. If not some other club will have him signed up within a week and the only people who end up getting punished are HKR, and even worse some other team gets rewarded by being able to sign him.

The other thing is why is ot ok for a team to sign a racist player ie Raynor, yet people feel strongly a team should sack a player if he has been racist?

I don't believe all cricketers eat shredded wheat.

I don't really care what ben cockayne believes about anything, he represents himself, what he thinks is a matter for him and his friends and associates. He doesn't represent Hull k.r or the rugby league. Likewise i din't think Bailey needed to defend himself about his facebook comments. When either are appointed ambassadors of rugby league i will take more interest.

I, on the other hand, think that he does represent Hull KR as do all the players who play for them

The difference between this and Bailey's comments on Facebook is that Bailey's was humour (or some attempt at it) whereas this was just a straight forward horrible racially motivated insult - in my opinion, they are very different

We'll have to disagree on that one, he plays for Hull k.r he's not there as a standard bearer fo K.R's Moral, religous, philosophical views or politics.

As a player for Hull KR I think Dunbar is right to say Cockayne "represents" them.

So if K.R have a player with Muslim beliefs that that is a refection of K.R's beliefs?

His beliefs are his own and he has a right to hold any, as do we all – it is when these beliefs manifest themselves as racial hatred expressed in the public domain that it becomes an issue

I think you possibly misunderstand the context in which 'represent' is used in this case.

It's meant in the same way that a police constable represents the police service or in the way that a soldier represents the army.

Lucky not to be sent off for a late, high, malicious tackle on Obst during the build up to the last try.

Not for me it isn't. It's his opinion not rugby leagues not Hull k.r's. Presumably you wouldn't have a problem with expressing a racial harmony view, it's just the oposite view on a subject. Nasty spitefull i agree and i disagree with him but i'll defend his right to say what he likes.

Gareth Hock represents Wigan's view on recreational drugs? Joel Monaghan represents Warrington's view on beastiality?

Thats fine, as long as HKA, and the game make it clear their views are different to Cockaches and they find those views abhorrent.

I've no problem with that if they feel it necassary personally i never thought for a second that they agreed with his view. I suppose somebody out there might need telling, a participant on jeremy kyle for instance.

I agree that it is a grey area as I firmly believe that he has a right to hold these beliefs and actually to state them – if this is his own opinion and his own alone

The grey area is this

I help to manage an IT Services company and we use social media to reach out into the community – this uses business tools such as Linkedin but also Twitter and Facebook and we encourage our employees to Tweet, Blog and ‘like’ our company. I do not know for sure but I would assume that Hull KR reach out into the Hull public using such tools

Now, if one of my employees wrote such a comment while linked to my company, I would take a very dim view of it – add to this the fact that I believe Cockayne ‘represents’ Hull KR as a public figure and I think he has brought the club into disrepute

If he was Joe Moron posting this on Facebook then fair play to him – he’s a bigoted idiot but that’s his problem. But, I am convinced that he will have accepted friends requests on Facebook from Hull KR fans who he does not personally know (I’m sure that somebody like Cockayne cannot have 1,000 ‘real’ friends) and so, whether he can understand this or not, he represents his club and therefore has to accept the consequences when his bigotry and hatred is exposed for what it is

Well that's indefensible if true isn't it, but that's not what this thread was about and not what I was referring to.

If as part of his employment was to promote the club via the internet and club gave him a framework of subject and content to stay within and this is polar opposite to what he was told, i'd agree with you. Then it would tarnish K.R's reputation as he would be representing them, but i'm unaware that this is the case.

I guess it is a matter of interpretation of the concept of ‘representing’ his club and we have reached an impasse in the conversation then – fair enough. Been a good debate though

Personally i want clubs to make people who arent familiar with the game comfortable. Not addressing racist views and racist comments within the game is hardly going to endear minorities to our game.

Frankly i find it a little suspicious that you argue so virulently in favour of Cockache being able to express these views, but seem so against the game publicly making clear that these views are only Cockaches and not representative of HKA or the game.

He gets far worse and we rarely get even a penalty, we see him getting head shots every week, which might be the officials subconciously thinking 'its only Cockayne'

There were several high (how do you distinguish a malicious from a non malicious I'll never know) shots during the game, if all ended up with sendings offs it would end up 7 a-side and 84-80 scoreline.

But didn't we have a debate recently on sin bin where several of the 'learned' members argued that free speech HAS to be offensive, or is that only when its someone you like saying it.

You were implying it is OK to use it because people you work with do. It isn't and I'm neither thick or stirring trouble, and nor am I the one defending a racist

You must be all of the above if you think I was condoning it, just pointing out it goes on quite a lot and was not left in the 70's, so you must be thick or stirring it if you cannot see that. Having to listen to a site manager use terms such as Paki or the like is not condoning in any way at all.

For the record, I said on here that Cockayne should have been jailed and sacked by Hull KR for his assault and I find his comments a disgrace and if the club sack him they will not get any complaints from me, but lets not be so naive to think that if he his sacked he won't turn up in another clubs shirt, lets face it we let back drug cheats (some even referee now) and players who place bets on their own teams to lose, Cockaynes stupidity has all been outside of the game and not inside it like the aforementioned cheats.

Malicious to me when the player on the end of it is undefended and open then there's leading with the point of the elbow to the face in an upward direction, add being late to the equation and you get malicious

Bit like the one Cockayne sustained at the arm of a Hull player in a previous game, when not even a sin bin was given.