FA’s inconsistencies highlighted, again
Yaya Toure will not face a ban for what appeared to be an
off-the-ball kick on Norwich’s Ricky Van Wolfwinkel.
Jon Moss, the referee for the clash between Manchester City & Norwich on Saturday, failed to see the incident, and it was therefore referred to a retrospective FA video panel for potential further action. After three former elite referees failed to unanimously decide any action needed to be taken, Toure shall escape scot-free.
Norwich were involved in another controversial incident only a few weeks ago after they hosted Newcastle, who lost top-scorer Loic Remy for three games following a spat with Bradley Johnson. Johnson’s red-card for his part in the handbags, was rescinded. It’s hard to detail how Remy was at any more fault than Johnson in the affair (bar a push to the chest, which last time I checked was a yellow offence), for comings together like this in today’s game you normally see common sense prevail and be put it bed very quickly.
Both teams appealed the red-card, but only Norwich succeeded. Even more confusingly, both teams were fined over the exact incident for ‘failing to control their players’ – Norwich £30,000 and Newcastle £20,000. If the FA did indeed decide Johnson was innocent in the whole fracas, why a week later would they fine the club at all, let alone more than the alleged actual guilty party?
The extra 10k apparently stems from The Canaries being fined for something similar earlier on in the season. I don’t know about you, but I struggled to follow the logic in all of that. It wasn’t anything serious at all really that the FA has made more convoluted than need be (Not that I’m annoyed we’ve missed Remy dearly……..).
Andy Carroll is another fine example.That is, for all intents and purposes, one of the softest sending’s off you will ever see. Chico Flores really didn’t help matters either. For a 6”2 centre-half, he hit the deck like he heard gun-fire. The England forwards momentum carried through and scraped the top of the Swansea defenders hair, at most.
Did he know what he was doing? I’d suggest he did. But there’s a big difference between say leading with an elbow and getting physical with a marker. You see far worse than that when marking at corners! If Chico doesn’t go down making a big song and dance about it, there is no sending off. It doesn’t take much common sense or forethought to see what’s going on there, but the FA panel rejected a West Ham appeal out of hand, and so did a follow-up independent commission.
And so, we now arrive at Toure. For anyone that hasn’t seen it, it’s blatant. No two-ways about it whatsoever. He gives Van Wolfwinkel a short, sharp kick to the bottom of his back which, to the Norwich forwards credit, he gives his best Chico Flores.
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho said prior to the decision: “Of course, I would be disappointed if he is not punished. If he is not, it has to be the same for everyone: if the referee doesn’t see, a player can do whatever he wants.
It doesn’t matter about cameras or others seeing; I can do whatever I want. If they make the rule that action can be taken if a referee has missed something, they have to apply that rule.”
I would argue that Toure has committed a far worse offence here than Carroll, Remy or Johnson. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger however, thinks the system works: “One positive thing is that this committee exists and that the players know that they can be punished even after the game, so that is very positive.
After that, the decision is made by human beings and then you have to accept we will not always agree on the way the decisions are made.”
If the committee justifies the means, then of course it’s good that is exists. If someone kept robbing you on the way home, you wouldn’t say ‘Oh well, we’ve got the police at least’.
They have to implement the rules on a case-by-case basis,
and justify them in black and white. Not just label things vaguely ‘violent
misconduct’. In light of news that Craig Bellamy is to serve a three game-ban for an off-the-ball incident with Swansea’s Jonathan De Guzman, I’d be keen to hear the FA’s explanation to what Bellamy did that Toure didn’t, because they in my eyes, are both stone-wall bans. If Toure’s kick isn’t violent conduct, but Carroll’s hair stroke is, then I would seriously question the latency powers of our esteemed FA.
