I’d love to comment but just the idea of Ian Wright, a man famous for his self-control and discipline, coming up with a four point plan to bring respect back into the game has just rendered me speechless.
What next? The Yorkshire Ripper’s dating guide?
I read some funny stuff in the papers this morning about Javier Mascherano’s ‘crazed rant’ at Old Trafford yesterday, most of them seeming to ignore the fact that he only went mental after being given a red card that he didn’t deserve.
The first yellow was harsh, in my opinion, but I can see why the referee would give it. It looked a lot worse than it actually was and no contact was made.
The second was absolute bullshit though. Firstly Fernando Torres was booked when he was being kicked in the back of the legs - I assume his booking was for daring to say something to the referee. Mascherano came over and quite clearly said ‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’, bemused at Torres’ yellow card. He didn’t swear, he wasn’t aggressive, he didn’t call the referee a ‘fucking cunt’, which seems to be something only Wayne Rooney or Ashley Cole can get away with.
For Bennet to give him a yellow card for dissent there is an absolute mockery. Players should be able to engage with officials provided they do it in the right way. Ok, you can say he shouldn’t have come over but he didn’t come charging, he didn’t act in an aggressive manner, he merely wanted to ask the referee why Torres was being booked after a series of fouls on him.
Let me ask you this - would Bennet have sent off Steven Gerrard in that situation? No. Would he have sent off Rooney or Ferdinand? No.
I’m all for players respecting the referee but at the same time the referee has be able to communicate with players. If Mascherano had called the ref a name, questioned his parentage, told him he was a shit ref, or was in any way foul and abusive then I’d have no problem with the red card. He did none of those things and to my mind the red card was way out of line. If Bennet had been having a problem all game with Mascherano, as some of the papers suggest, he should have either told the Liverpool captain to control his player, or simply tell the player himself to keep his mouth shut. A little communication goes a long way.
As it was the game of football was ruined for the neutral and now Mascherano faces a long spell out for his behaviour after the red card. It’s easy to understand his frustration and it’s easy for Bennet to make an example of a foreigner who has paid for the price for the referees general relucatance to properly discipline England players for their onfield antics.
Has Sepp Blatter ever come up with a good idea? Maybe I don’t know enough about the inner workings of FIFA, but I get the impression that Blatter is a bit of an idiot.
His latest idea may not be as ridiculous as his plan to force women footballers to play in skimpy clothing, but it’s pretty stupid nonetheless: lifetime bans and criminal prosecutions for dangerous tackles.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not condoning dangerous play, and I think the current system of straight red cards earning the aggressor a three-match ban, regardless of the offence, is absurd. But lifetime bans are a nonsense. For a start, they depend on the interpretation; the recent tackle by Martin Taylor on Eduardo, for instance, was reckless and stupid, but was there an element of malice? If Eduardo’s foot hadn’t been planted the way it was, he wouldn’t have suffered the terrible injury; would that still be an offence worth ending Taylor’s career? A six match ban would be sufficient, as far as I’m concerned; we have to give players the chance to apologise and rehabilitate themselves.
And as for criminal charges, once you start down that road you’re opening yourselves up for a whole new era of litigation. If you set the precedent that tackles can lead to legal action, what’s to stop players suing other players if they feel they have been tackled unfairly? Or players suing managers for giving them instructions to be physical, which then lead to a player being banned for life?
Football needs to be a physical game, but it doesn’t have to be a dangerous one. No-one wants to see players facing potentially career-ending injuries, but the solution, in my opinion, is a mixture of the following ideas:
It was referenced below but the sending off of Boro’s Jeremie Aliadiere could not have been more different than that of Martin Taylor for his shocking tackle on Arsenal’s Eduardo.
Yes, we all know you can’t ‘raise your hands’, as if the simple act of raising your hands would instantly result in a shattered jaw for the opponent, but three games for what he did was very harsh.
Boro appealed, the appeal was rejected and now Aliadiere has to serve an extra game for making a ‘frivolous appeal’.
So, let’s get this in context: Jeremie Aliadiere will miss 4 games because he ‘raised his hands’, not because of a punch, an elbow or anything that might really hurt a player. Martin Taylor gets 3 games after his brutal challenge put another player out of the game for 9 months.
If I were Boro I’d appeal again and I’d want to know exactly how anybody with a brain in their head can justify Aliadiere spending more time on the sidelines than Martin Taylor. Can anybody, no matter what team they support or what their opinion of Taylor’s challenge, possibly justify that? No, they cannot.
Just more evidence that the disciplinary system is absolutely fucked up. It’s making an absolute mockery of football and unless more is done to punish real violent conduct then there will be more Eduardos.