Confusion reigns over FA decisions
The Football Association’s policy on punishing players by virtue of video (surely it should be DVD by now...?) evidence has left me baffled.
Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli is currently serving a four-match ban after he was charged by the Football Association for violent conduct following Sunday’s Premier League clash with Tottenham Hotspur.
He was punished retrospectively when TV evidence appeared to show the Italian stamping on Scott Parker’s head after the two had clashed on the edge of the Spurs penalty area during City’s dramatic 3-2 victory.
In real time the collision looked innocent enough, but when slowed down and from different angles it did take on a more sinister look.
My opinion is that Balotelli should have been given the benefit of the doubt, as there is no way it could be proved the stamp was a deliberate act.
It didn’t look great, but the City man could easily have been trying to adjust his feet while off balance to avoid standing on Parker. Only Balotelli will know what he was thinking and doing.
But, with referee Howard Webb claiming not to have seen the incident - despite seemingly looking straight at it - it meant the FA could throw the book at Balotelli having watched recordings of the incident - so they did.
Which I can just about accept, but only if everybody is treated in the same manner, and I don’t think that’s the case.
In the same game, Joleon Lescott blatantly forearm smashed Spurs’ Younes Kaboul in the face.
That did look deliberate to me as Lescott was looking straight at the Spurs man as he did it, but the mysterious ‘FA panel’ that decides on these things said that challenge was okay and no action should be taken.
Stoke City’s Peter Crouch is then caught on camera apparently trying to eye gouge West Brom’s Jonas Olsson, but amazingly he too was let off as ‘having no case to answer’.
So what was Crouch trying to do then? Tidy up Olsson’s fringe for him?
Rewind a few weeks and you have City’s Vincent Kompany red-carded and banned for four games for a supposed two-footed lunge at Nani in the Manchester derby, and then a few days later Liverpool’s Glen Johnson gets away completely with what looked a more reckless two-footed tackle on Lescott in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final.
It’s no real surprise that City boss Roberto Mancini has the look of a wronged man these days... although I don’t think this is an anti-City thing as far as the FA are concerned, I just don’t think they know what they are doing.
There have also been several other contentious incidents in recent weeks, where some players have been punished and others left alone, and there is no pattern to what is happening.
It really is a guessing game as to what the FA will do on any given incident.
And let’s not forget, the FA dishing out these bans and threatening extra punishment for ‘frivolous appeals’, is the same FA that appealed to UEFA to have Wayne Rooney’s ban for his sending off against Montenegro reduced from three games to two.
Is there a bit of double standards here?
So what is actually going on? I mean, is it coincidence that all of the players let off in recent weeks are England internationals?
For years the call has been for consistency from referees, now it seems we need some consistency from the disciplinary panel as well. Otherwise, it will become a bit of a laughing stock... if it isn’t already.
Saints chief executive Allan Robson has claimed this week that switching last weekend’s Heineken Cup clash against Munster was not about the club making money.
Well, forgive me if I take that statement with a pinch of salt.
The club can put as many different spins on this as it likes.
They can say it was about more Saints fans watching the game, and it’s true there were more Saints fans at stadiummk than there would have been at Franklin’s Gardens - but there were also about 5,000 more Munster fans, with some estimates putting the Irish contingent at the game as many as 8,000.
That proved counter-productive for Saints, as they effectively surrendered their home advantage, lost the game and missed out on a quarter-final place in the Amlin Challenge Cup.
As far as I can see, no matter what spin is put on it, the switch was all about maximising revenue, both on the day, but also regarding the club’s intention to expand its fanbase beyond the Northants border. So it clearly was a money-making exercise, both in the now, and looking to the future.
Switching the game was a decision that must have frustrated the club’s thousands of fans in Northampton that had to travel for a home game. And was it really fair on the season-ticket holders that bought those tickets on the understanding the Munster game would be at the Gardens? Many of them will feel aggrieved, and rightly so.
The concern is, are Saints now going to switch any big game that comes along that they know will attract a bigger crowd than can squeeze into the wonderful Gardens stadium?
Has a precedent been set? Only time will tell.
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