THE most overused phrase in English football at the moment has got to be 'role model'.

In column inch after column inch in the national press a clutch of modern day footballers are being lambasted for failing to set the right example.

If there is a story in the national papers about a fracas in Leeds city centre, or urinating over a bar in London's swanky West End, or getting involved in a dust up in a nightclub then you can be sure at the centre of it will be some Premiership soccer star who is involved.

The fact that such stories still carry such shock value is becoming questionable to say the least.

The bigger shock stories are that the English game's two major stars are Michael Owen and David Beckham who happen to be nice lads who keep their noses clean -- not much mileage for the tabloids there.

But to get back to the point, I find it a little strange to be setting young football stars up as role models.

It is true that some of the stories of recent months are beyond the pail in terms of being reasonable in a civilised society, but who exactly are we dealing with.

Generally males in their late teenage years to their mid-twenties are not held up as pillars of society, nor are they expected to be so.

That section of the community are more likely to defy the boundaries society lays upon them than perhaps any other age group.

So now throw into the mix for your average Premiership footballer a monthly wage that exceeds the average annual wage for most mere mortals -- and a job in which there is just so much spare time to squander after you have finished training.

So what you have is a cocktail (or maybe more than one if it is three days away from match day) where straying off the path is almost a vocational hazard.

While I am not condoning any of the inappropriate actions of a sprinkling of young Premiership footballers have perpetrated, can we please stop holding them up as some kind of yardstick of society's ills.

Fine them, fire them, may be even jail them -- they live under the same laws as the rest of us -- but can we stop flaying them for failing in "their duty" to the rest of society.

Certainly they are kids who need to grow up, but if you stick any kid in a sweetshop and the outcome is all too predictable.