Comment: There is no excuse to abuse players, regardless of how rich they are

It’s nonsense, of course. The customer is quite often wrong, but in this age of TripAdvisor, smart phones, and social media, companies bend over backwards to accommodate anyone.

Football fans are understandably feeling increasingly like consumers in this global, moneyed age of Premier League football. Sky-rocketing wages have separated player from fan indefinitely.

There has always been abuse from the terraces and, on the whole, things have improved from the dark days of the 1970s and 80s when Albion players like Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson were subject to horrific racist abuse.

But the Jake Livermore incident at the London Stadium on Tuesday night, when a West Ham fan allegedly mocked the death of his young son, proves there is a new breed of supporter who thinks anything goes when it comes to footballers.

It’s easy to brush this under the carpet by saying it was one idiot among 50,000 sensible people, and the fan in question is facing a stadium ban for his disgusting behaviour. But actually, there is a worrying trend emerging in this country.

Astronomical wages are being increasingly used as a stick to unfairly beat footballers with, as an excuse to ignore the fact they have human needs and emotions like everyone else.

Any complaint of fatigue, either mentally or physically, is ridiculed because they are paid well. But there is arguably more scrutiny, and therefore more pressure, on footballers than ever before.

Aaron Lennon's battle with mental health has helped highlight this issue, and yet there are some fans who just see the money.

After the game Pardew said the mental effect of playing two games in three days was bigger than the physical one.

Livermore was not even supposed to be playing, and only started because Matt Phillips pulled up in the warm-up.

There is no way the supporter in question would have said what he did had he bumped into an England international in the street. He probably would have asked him for his autograph.

The incident will have reminded Baggies fans of a similarly unsavoury episode nearly two years ago when someone in the Albion end hurled a coin at Chris Brunt.

This is not defending or excusing those footballers who do abuse their privileged position, and ridiculous wages do not sit easy when supporters plunge thousands of their hard-earned pounds each year into teams that feel more like global companies than community clubs.

But Jake Livermore is no prima donna, he’s a hard-working family man who has had to deal with a horrendous tragedy in the public eye.

Just because he’s rich, it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be treated like a human being. And just because your television subscription helps pay for his wages, it doesn’t mean you own him.