Why Ben Roethlisberger Should Move to France

The list of footballers selected to play for the French national team in the upcoming World Cup in South Africa was announced today. Two of the three players recently named in an ongoing investigation into an underage prostitution ring will be on the team. And if Benzema was not named it is because of his poor play, not because he slept with a minor.

Franck Ribéry, Karim Benzema, and Sydney Govou all allegedly paid for sex with a seventeen year-old working in Paris... But as Le Monde reported this week:

In the end, the affair does not seem to have significantly altered the popularity of the players, at least in the case of Franck Robéry: the Bayern international remains a central piece of the French national team, as the ideal team according to Monde.fr readers testifies: Ribéry is in third place among your votes, just behind Lloris and Gourcuff.

This reveals as much about the expectations of sports stars in the France vs. the USA as it does about divergent attitudes toward sexuality.

If someone tells Roethlisberger what "football" players can get away with in Europe, he may just move overseas.