LET'S GET this straight. Wayne Rooney swears during a televised match - and suddenly he's single-handedly responsibile for sending our children on the road to borstal, drugs and prostitution.

I'm not the rotund one's greatest fan, but even I couldn't pin that one on him.

The recommendation this week by some woolly-jumper from the Secondary Heads' Association that live football games should only be screened after the 9pm watershed is both preposterous and laughable.

His notion that footballers swearing on the pitch will send children off the rails is so far detached from reality that you wonder if he's ever stopped off in the real world - even for a day trip.

I spent my youth playing football - and swore. A lot. This wasn't because I saw Tommy Smith call the referee a b******, but because the game is all about passion and aggression. Take that away, and you might as well ask boxers to fight wearing Mr Blobby suits.

I never had the urge to go out stealing because I saw a footballer swear on TV. I never started effing and blinding at school because I saw one player question another's parentage. In fact, I've still never swore in front of my parents!

Children are impressionable - but they're not stupid.

Seeing Rooney utter a four-letter word isn't going to suddenly turn them into cursing zombies. Swearing is all around us. Watch any game of park football, and you'll see that it's the parents on the sidelines doing all the swearing, not the youngsters on it.

Most movies over PG-rated contain swear words. Even Coronation Street dishes out the odd profanity.

And then you get to the stadium itself. Take the recent clashes between Blackburn and Burnley. How can we ask the referee to send a player off for uttering a swear word when 26,000 people are screaming 'we hate b*******!' at each other for 90 minutes?

Parents - if you are so concerned about swearing, why not tackle the problem yourself? Sit down with your child and explain the wrongs of swearing. After all, that's your responsibility as a parent.

When you look at all the important issues in the game today, it's clear that we're hiding behind a rock.

Hooliganism is on the rise again. Black players are being racially abused again. Park pitches are being neglected. Clubs are going to the wall, and cheating and diving is on the up.

So is swearing really that important an issue?

Of course it's not. It's just another knee-jerk reaction from sections of the media who need to fill endless hours of TV space and thousands of newspaper column inches.

Swearing is this week's buzz word - and only because Rooney was the culprit. Do you really think there would be this much commotion if Nissa Johansson was caught on camera? No chance.

Last week, we had pushing the referee. Last month, it was diving. The month before was spitting. We've had the shirts over the heads debate, and who can forget that 'not intefering with play' debate on the offside rule.

Next week it will be something else and all those tweed coats from the education department can go back to their proper job of educating our children.