Offside Ref

So the FA have decided to let Defoe off the hook for the whole biting thing saying that FIFA rules don’t allow them to punish him sufficiently because the ref has already punished him. I got one thing to say, It’s a totally cop out and rubbish.

I was quite surprised that a lot of people are divided over this and appear to fall into one of two camps. The ‘it was nothing, play on’ brigade or the ‘Physical abuse is not allowed, punish him’ brigade (I’m in). For me it’s a cut and dry case any attempt to cause hurt is violent conduct (That’s an automatic red card according to the laws of the game).

Now biting can hurt even if it doesn’t leave a mark, so claims of he wasn’t even marked don’t wash with me. Is it acceptable for someone to even try and bite you in the street? No, so why should it be on the football field. If you are fouled on the pitch then the ref deals with it, you don’t retaliate. Martin Jol’s nibble comments are total crap, what does he think Defoe was trying, foreplay?

Ref’s are only human (they sometimes make mistakes) so the fact he didn’t send of Defoe although disappointing is understandable but the FA have to follow through, which they haven’t done and that is very disappointing.

Clearly Jermain Defoe forgot to eat his Monster Munch crisps before going to play football and decided instead to try and eat West Ham’s Mascherano.  So I’m nominating Jermain Defoe and Martin Jol as my Villains of the week.  Defoe for attempting to eat Mascherano and Jol for trying to defend Defoe’s action.

This case like other recent incidents presents the FA with a problem since the rules don’t allow for action to be taken on offences that have already received punishment, despite the fact that the punishment may not have been appropriate. Although the FA have in exceptional cases ignored this rule.

Personally I think that the panel that sits and looks at video evidence should be allowed to over rule any decision based on what they have seen. Players can already be exonerated, why not the other way?  It may keep some honest if they know will get caught and punished, though I doubt it.

More often than not great players don’t go on become great managers, it seem that its often the really average midfielder or defender who rises to the top of the management game, its almost as if they knew what they wanted to do as a player but couldn’t do it with their feet but were able to put it into words for others. There are of course exceptions and increasingly now days you don’t get a second look if you didn’t make it as a player.

So we come to Roy Keane whose pedigree as a player can’t be argued about. Having just been appointed manager of Sunderland everyone has begun to wonder what sort of a manager he will make.

Keane has as good as admitted that he will need to be a bit more subtle.  For good reason too, the fact is that you just can’t shout at your squad for the entire season as the shock value losses its effect and players end up ignoring the person doing the shouting.  So it looks like Keane will have to mellow a little.

I have to admit that I have no idea how this one is going to go but feel that he will that to it like a duck to water or after a positive start, crash and burn.

I hope for the Sunderland fans it works out as surely they suffered enough last season.

If ever there was a case for a fifth official with access to video replays it was in this Saturday’s, Everton vs Watford game.  The game end 2-1 to Everton, with Everton being awarded a penalty which should have never been given.

The penalty was awarded for handball in the area when the replay clearly shows the ball hitting Chris Powell (Watford) in the middle of the forehead.  This gets us to ask did ref have a clear view, did the linesman see anything.  While the last call does go to the referee and rightly so, they do have assistants that sometimes refs don’t always appear to make the best use of (probably not the case but it does feel like it sometimes).

So lets assume the ref was in a position to see and was a quirk of the angle making it look like handball or the linesman made a similar call and told the ref, and it was just one of those calls in football that wasn’t really anyone’s fault but was just a bad one because of a line of sight quirk.

Now I’m not really one to advocate the use of video evidence and certainly wouldn’t want the game stopped every two minutes to look at something but have come to the conclusion that where video evidence is available it should be used to aid in deciding game changing decisions such as penalty calls, sending offs, goals and maybe one or two other things.

Increasingly sportsmanship appears to be losing its way in the beautiful game with increased incidents of diving; calling for players to be sent off or carded, the list just goes on and on.

This bad sportsmanship looks set to kill off the unwritten rule that the ball is kicked out of play so that injured players can recieve treatment.  The Premier League now wants referee’s to decide when play should be stopped as some players have be faking injuring to break up oppenent attacks.

If the ref stops the game, it will result in a drop ball, if the ball is kicked out of play then it’s a normal throwing.  This should also stop controversial situations arising like Marc Overmars’ goal for Arsenal against Sheffield United in their 1999 FA Cup fifth-round tie.

Since this is not part of the football laws it come down to everyone to play there part to enforce it and I think they will as managers will be telling their teams that the opposition will use throws to attack and so should they.  The lower leagues have decided not to use this as they believe it’s currently not a problem there but will keep an eye open.

I can see this sticking and propergating down to the lower leagues and out to other leagues around the world.  It’s sad that it has come to this but it does appear to be the right thing to do for the integrity of the game.