im not comparing their 'offensiveness', you dont have a right not to be offended.

You do however have a right, in your workplace especially, not to be subject to homophobic behaviour and/or discrimination

What if I called him a ' Big girls blouse instead ? , maybe the RFL should issue a list of refernces we can and cannot use , and in your case john , what if i called you a ' Muppet ' , is that abuse

was the warning they received about crowd trouble last year not a strong enough signal to Cas that they had to do something about an unsavoury element amongst their support base?

Another Muppet

maybe some of the attitudes in this thread highlight why we have so few openly gay men in our sport.

Maybe they feel that they would make themselves a target for homophobic behaviour and that some elements of the game would blame the openly gay player for 'playing the victim' or 'attention seeking' rather than addressing homophobia within the game.

I think this is the point. Cas haven't done that have they? Therefore they get punished for not doing enough to stop it.

I suppose thats quite reasonable comment to be honest, but I still feel that the issue of homophobic chanting (or any other abusive language) needed to be highlighted as a separate issue, not only to Castleford but to all teams and furthermore the whole country.

From what people have said there were 15 or so young lads who were chanting things, who probably didn't really think anything of it at the time or indeed of the potentially consequences for the club.

A small number of fans threw bottles onto the pitch and the club put CCTV and more stewards into play to deal with the issue. This incident occurred and the club immediately began making it clear to the fans that abusive behaviour was not acceptable. I fail to see how they club could have dealt with the issue any further.

Whilst many suggest that these fans should be identified and banned, I'm not entirely convinced that's the solution either. Like I said elsewhere, I don't think those fans are anymore homophobic than a lot of other people. I think they are perhaps a bit naive more than anything and this is exactly the reason that I feel the RFL should have dealt with the issue in an educational manner rather than the route they have actually taken.

Many will disagree but that's just my thoughts.

now they will, and if they still dont, Castleford will be forced to make sure they educate them as to why they shouldnt do it

Exactly!

It seems too many folk on here are looking at this too simplistically; that a few folk shouted a couple of things for a few moments about someone being a bit of a nancy. The story also fits nicely into "the RFL are rubbish" rant category.

Yes, one man's is another man's cr4p is another man's poo. But, homophobia really isn't acceptable and saying well so-and-so has said worse won't it any more acceptable.

The fine may seem harsh, but this isn't a singular issue. Cas have been fined for previous crowd related offences and have been warned by the RFL.

Yes, the RFL have reacted more strongly because of the media, but rightly so. When Alf signed he was the most well know Rugby player in Britain, partly because of his career, partly because of his coming out and wanting to tackle homophobia. When he signed the general vibe from the media seemed to suggest that he will no doubt receive some stick from League fans because we're all oiks. I would imagine that the RFL would have sent a memo out to all clubs explaining their stance on any unsavoury behaviour from fans.

There are lots of issues involved here, I do think 40k is a bit harsh, but if people are questioning the legitimacy of the decision and also questioning whether homophobic remarks are really that bad then it makes me think the RFL iseven more in the right.

The RFL conspiracy story also conveniently ignores the fact that the decision was not made by Richard Lewis, Nigel wood or the RFL board, but rather by a tribunal free of club links chaired by a crown court judge. I cannot imagine he would want to blemish his record (or endanger his livelihood) by conspiring in a petty vendetta.

The RFL should have warned all the clubs that they would be liable to fines if they responded to homophobic chanting in the way Cas did (or, perhaps more accurately, didn't). Making an example "out of the blue" was not the way to go.

Having said that, their aims are to be commended; how can we possibly attract a new audience when elements of the old one are still living their lives in a 1970s sitcom.

This can’t be good for Gareth Thomas. I’m sure he wouldn’t of wanted a 40k fine for Castleford even though the chanting was aimed towards him.

I suppose its best to make a big issue out of these things!

Quite a few comments saying that the £40k was too much and Cas could have just solved it by telling people not to.

In my opinion, if the punishment wasn't "unrealistic" nothing would have happened. I bet Cas are more aware of what their fans say now and so will all the other clubs.

in addition, the fans represent the club, whether we like it or not......and the small group of fans represent the big group of fans......unless people speak out in opposition.
Plenty of people could have told the supposed "15 kids" to shut up, stewards could have told them to shut up, the club could have immediately clamped down on the them and warned/banned them.
As none of this happened the club is allowing those people to speak for the club and other fans....and so have paid the price.

It's easy with hindsight to say I didn't agree after GT has been interviewed inthe papers but Cas (and the fans) needed to do something earlier in my opinion if they wanted to avoid all this.

24 hours on and i still cannot get my head around the decision,i was at the game and never heared nothing all be it i stand at the railway end of the ground but obviously some chants were made.

now reading some of the comments made on here you would think that the entire population of castleford had set about mr.thomas in a witchhunt of hatred towards is sexuality,when in reality we are talking about a dozen or so of teenagers who probably thought what they were singing was funny.

i also find it rather strange that on the signing of gareth thomas some people think that all clubs should have been made aware that homophobic chanting wouldnt be tolerated,should we do the same for black,asian,chinese players or maybe players with a fuller figure than most ?

it is the most bizzare decision the rfl has ever made and they have opened up a can of worms which CANNOT and WILL NOT ever be able to be policed or stopped regardless of club,town or player.player abuse happens every weekend whether its played by u7s or professionals,very wrong i agree especially at junior level but it does happen and any club that denies they havent had any problems would be lying,what im getting at is that abuse of sportsman happens everywhere and in the majority of team sports around the globe and the rfls need to punish one small incident by the way of a huge fine is nothing more than a ridiculous and thoughtless decision.

I wasn’t there but, from what I’ve read from the Castleford club and fans that were, they did everything possible to stop the chanting. They used the tannoy to warn them when they chanted and made the usual Rugby League ‘Respect’ announcements, which you hear at all clubs.

Short of physically removing a large group of youngsters from the ground, I cannot see what more they could have done at the time. That, in-itself, could have caused a violent incident which would have been much worse than a bit of name calling. Then there’s the legal minefield of physically removing children from the ground.

The situation just isn’t as straight-forward as you want to portray it.

Gareth Thomas

Quote: PopTart "“I’ve been told there were people in the crowd telling those chanting to shut up.”'"

So, in GT’s own words, people around these youths told them to shut up, as well as the tannoy announcements. Clearly they took no notice what-so-ever. What more can you do from there?

This is a massive over-reaction by the RFL imo. All because a group of 15-20 young adolescents acted childishly, in a way many young adolescents are apt to do, and continued chanting despite warnings to stop from the club and fans around them.

As I understand it, Castleford are still in the process of finding out who these fans are – no easy task - in an attempt to have the culprits banned. I’m not sure what any club could do any better. Now we have more bad press about RL and a fine that makes it look like our game has such a huge problem with homophobia that it requires drastic action. Imo it hasn’t and it doesn’t. Castleford’s name has been dragged through the mud and the usual numpties on this board have taken the opportunity to castigate and tar with the same brush all of their fans.

It also won’t stop like-minded idiots from doing the same at either Cas or other clubs. Such idiots have no sense of responsibility or shame, and are rarely genuine fans. All clubs have such fans.

We now have a precedent set and a can of worms has now been opened as to what does, and what doesn’t constitute homophobic chants and comments.

Only the RFL!

A £3-5k fine and a demand that the club send players and officials into local schools to preach their respect message would have sufficed imo. This would have been a low key punishment but, never-the-less, a punishment. It can’t take back what happened anymore than a £40k fine, but it won’t have such a disastrous affect on a club- nay a sport – that isn’t exactly flush with cash to start with. It would still get the message out that this behavior is unacceptable and, with the extra work in local schools, some good could’ve come of it.