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When Andros Townsend scored at Manchester United in front of Cristiano Ronaldo three seasons ago, he brought a new kind of goal celebration to the Premier League.
By mimicking Ronaldo’s trademark “Siuuu” move during Everton’s 1-1 draw at Old Trafford, Townsend pioneered a response to scoring with the potential to get right under the skin not only of opposition supporters but a player stood yards away. That he felt the need to stress afterwards that his celebration had been nothing more than “a mark of respect to one of my idols” merely reinforced how badly such a gesture may have gone down.
Fast-forward to Arsenal’s 5-1 thrashing of Manchester City this month and Myles Lewis-Skelly’s mimicking of Erling Haaland’s meditation pose when netting his first Arsenal goal was anything but a tribute to Ronaldo’s successor as football’s deadliest marksman. Instead, Lewis-Skelly’s withering riposte to being asked “Who the f--- are you?” on his Premier League debut in September, and to Mikel Arteta being told to “Stay humble”, saw the weaponisation of the goal celebration taken to its logical conclusion.
That the target of this mockery went on to barge his tormentor over 10 minutes later, before the City striker’s father erupted over a social-media post by Arsenal featuring a photograph of Lewis-Skelly’s celebration, made clear what the Haalands thought of the 18-year-old’s antics. Fans and pundits have since been divided over whether such pantomime feuds are good or bad for the game, with Tony Scholes, the Premier League’s chief football officer, even threatening a crackdown on goal celebrations that crossed into “mockery or criticism”.
Arsenal’s players are making a habit of mimicking opponents’ celebrations in front of them. Last season Bukayo Saka copied James Maddison’s darts-throwing routine in the club’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur, and this term Gabriel Magalhães stole Viktor Gyokeres’s mask gesture in Arsenal’s 5-1 Champions League win at Sporting Lisbon. The latter was said to be in response to Sporting midfielder Pedro Gonçalves mimicking then Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka’s celebration when knocking the Londoners out of the Europa League two seasons earlier.
Maddison and Gyokeres both made light of seeing an opponent using their trademark move. And Haaland appeared to do the same on Tuesday night when his strutting celebration upon putting City ahead in the Champions League against Real Madrid was copied by Jude Bellingham, who netted the holders’ last-gasp winner. The same cannot be said for when Neal Maupay, one of football’s biggest wind-up merchants, copied Maddison’s trademark celebration after giving Brentford the lead in their 3-2 defeat at Spurs in January last year. The two players became embroiled in a heated exchange afterwards, which escalated into a full-blown feud post-match.
None of the above incidents resulted in disciplinary action under rules governing goal celebrations. According to the Laws of the Game, “provocative” celebrations are punishable with a yellow card, making the weaponisation of the act to mock rival players or fans a risky business. Just a week before Lewis-Skelly taunted Haaland, Everton’s Iliman Ndiaye was booked for celebrating the only goal in their 1-0 win at Brighton and Hove Albion by flapping his arms like a seagull in front of home supporters.
But the rules have been inconsistently enforced, with Jamie Vardy escaping punishment five seasons ago for flapping his own arms like an eagle in front of Crystal Palace fans after scoring in Leicester City’s 2-0 win at Selhurst Park. Premier League winner Vardy has also taunted rival supporters whose teams have yet to lift a Premier League title amid a long tradition of goalscorers reacting to abuse from the stands and social media by having a pop back. All this begs the question over what is “provocative”, with this season seeing Phil Foden and Joshua Zirkzee face no action for pretending to fire guns towards the crowd after scoring.
The rise of players mimicking opponents’ goal celebrations has coincided with that of football’s biggest names attempting to officially trademark their own special moves. Last year, Kylian Mbappé filed to protect the image of him crossing his arms and tucking his hands underneath his armpits with the European Union Intellectual Property Office.
Bellingham, whose goal celebration involves him posing with his arms outstretched, and Barcelona’s Dani Olmo, who marks scoring by pointing to his wrist as if checking the time, followed suit. And, last month, Cole Palmer filed a similar application with the Government’s Intellectual Property Office that even included a video of his shivering “Cold Palmer” celebration. That is despite Palmer admitting he copied the move from former City academy team-mate Morgan Rogers, who first performed it playing for Middlesbrough and has done so again since joining Aston Villa. And, like many celebrations in football, Rogers cannot even claim to have invented it, with basketball star Trae Young having performed a similar “shiver” for years for the Atlanta Hawks.
The firm of solicitors behind Palmer’s application, Mills & Reeve, has stressed he is not seeking to “stop” Rogers or anyone else copying the move on the field of play. Indeed, Alex Newman, a partner in the practice, told Telegraph Sport it would be “a seriously uphill task” for a footballer to try to use the trademarking of a celebration to prevent an opponent performing it during a match. He said the player would need to show such a move constituted “the unauthorised use of that mark in the course of trade”. “It would be testing the boundaries of what ‘in the course of trade’ means in a statutory sense to make that argument,” he added.
Players of EA Sports, formerly FIFA, will be relieved to hear Newman also state that such trademarks would unlikely affect what has become a key feature of a game on which millions are spent acquiring licences to use real-life players – including their celebrations.
Back in the real world, there are numerous examples of a player copying the goal celebration of a team-mate or of groups of them performing a move en masse. Telegraph Sport has been told some clubs actively encourage their players to celebrate together to help with team bonding, starting at academy level. It has long been the case that a refusal of a team-mate to join when a goal is scored has led to questions over whether all is well behind the scenes at a football club. Yet, even Andrew Cole and Teddy Sheringham celebrated goals together while playing for United, despite a bizarre feud that resulted in the pair refusing to speak to each other.
With Lewis-Skelly and Haaland not about to become team-mates any time soon, it will be a long wait to see whether either scores when Arsenal next play City and, if so, what celebration he has in store.
