The news that Mario Balotelli had been charged with a stamp on Parker during Manchester City’s dramatic win on Sunday was met with a dramatic sigh by me, but with little surprise.
I changed my mind twice on how bad the incident was, but settled on the opinion that he does impulsively kick out at Parker. I can’t be sure of that, no one can, but the FA doesn’t need proof to convict. The incident looks worse when slowed down and replayed from every conceivable angle until you find the outcome you want to see. Claims from other fans that he “stamped on Parker’s head” as if we witnessed some vicious post-pub brawl are predictably biased and wide of the mark (he didn’t actually touch his head, but intent is enough), as I doubt he knew he was kicking out at any head (not knowing where Parker was), but the movement doesn’t look natural, and he will get a four-match ban.
Balotelli doesn’t help himself. His first booking was ridiculous, one of many harsh bookings he receives whilst others around him foul with the regularity of an atomic clock, but he does invite trouble. Both with his demeanour, which referees should see past, but don’t, and by occasionally leaving a leg in here or there. He has to mature to survive in the premiership, as referees will sadly be looking out for him now – in fact, they already are.
Conspiracy theories about the FA though are embarrassing. The FA is not out to get City. Alex Ferguson thinks the FA has it in for United too. Liverpool fans aren’t too impressed with them at the moment, for obvious reasons. Sorry to disappoint, but there is not a top-secret cabal hidden away in the mountains of western Peru (named Bouncer55 after the leader’s age and his late dog’s name) deviously planning their next move to hinder Manchester City’s resurgence. The FA chairman is not much of a City fan if that was the case.
Many City fans on Twitter who dared suggest that perhaps he deserved to be charged were labelled as traitors. Apparently you must as a fan remain blinkered at all times and support your player, irrelevant of what your eyes tell you. However, it’s not surprising some City fans get slightly paranoid and defensive when Bale’s equaliser is cheered by the whole press box at the Etihad Stadium. I’m sure their intentions were honourable, and they just wanted football to be the winner.
And as for claims of England hypocrisy regarding the fact they appealed the Rooney ban, people need to realise that the situations are not comparable. The FA did not appeal the ban because they thought Rooney to be innocent. They appealed because they felt that three-match bans are too harsh for international matches, due to their scarcity, an argument I happen to agree with. A kick at another player can see a player out of action for half a year. The FA never claimed that Rooney shouldn’t be banned.
But nevertheless, the FA must stop being led by media campaigns, be it Wayne Rooney swearing into a camera or De Jong making a sliding tackle. The rules should be there for everyone, not just for players subject to witch hunts in the media. How many of you know about Peter Crouch’s alleged eye gouge at the weekend? Well you wouldn’t if you watched Sky Sports News on Monday. Basically this is the price that is paid by big clubs – bigger media coverage, more analysis, more scrutiny, everything ramped up to the max to satisfy Sky’s hungry PR machine pumping out round-the-clock news. Even the Telegraph ran a story (anonymously of course) asking if Balotelli could be subject to police charges. As for Harry Redknapp, he was at his hypocritical best, keen to condemn a challenge he happened to have seen clearly, whilst not seeing his own player Huddlestone’s appalling challenge last year. As always, we should not use managers as a moral compass.
But most galling of all is that on Sunday there were two hugely important, exciting games that shaped the title race and no one is talking about the football yet again, because of a two-day loop of a clash of players, and this happens week after week after week.
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But there’s little point in appealing the charge – the fact that the FA have brought it suggests they already assume guilt in the matter, and will back Howard Webb’s assertion that if he had sent he incident he would have issued a red card.
And moaning about other players getting off with past indiscretions doesn’t solve anything either.
Consistency! Every time a controversial incident happens, the word is wheeled out. But those players got away with it in the past for one reason. Essentially it’s the rule of the referee seeing it that spared them, and it’s that rule that, in my opinion, needs changing (but never will be). Let’s stop backing their every decision, and accept they may not see things correctly, let’s accept they are human beings and prone to mistakes, and allow retrospective punishments irrelevant of whether the match officials saw it or not at the time. How can we argue against players always getting a just punishment (though of course even with replays from 10 different angles we can rarely agree on many tackles). The system clearly doesn’t work – if anything, Lescott’s forearm smash was worse than Balotelli’s indiscretion, yet he gets away with it whilst Balotelli sits at home for almost a month (not that I am convinced Lescott meant any harm either – something else for City fans to disagree over). The thing is that the rule gives referees a get-out clause over the ineffectiveness of their performance. There has to be real suspicion that referees are saying they haven’t seen things when they have, so as to appear more competent. Players’ futures are on the whim of what the referee says, and there have been many instances of referees claiming not to have seen an incident that replays show they were looking directly at.
But this is not an FA rule, so don’t expect any change. As Graham Poll explained in March 2011 on the Daily Mail website (and he’s never wrong), after Wayne Rooney’s elbow on Wigan’s James McCarthy was not punished further:
“….the referee dealt with the incident at the time and FIFA do not support the ‘re-refereeing’ of incidents which referees act upon — whether rightly or wrongly. The statement issued indicates that referee Mark Clattenburg was happy with the action he took on the pitch. Without using video replays that does not surprise me.
Could the FA not have taken retrospective action anyway?
Only if no action was taken on the field. If that had been the case they would have sent a video clip to Clattenburg, who would have said what he would have done had he seen the incident. The statement would indicate that he would not have supported charging Rooney even if he had not seen what happened.
What changes should the FA make to stop this happening again?
This is where things get confusing as the FA say they are hamstrung by FIFA regulations and yet other countries (Australia and Holland, I believe) are acting retrospectively over diving. FIFA believes that referees must be supported, even when they make errors.
So we’ll never have consistency. Players will get away with metaphorical murder, and they will sit out whole months after winning a tackle. City might have been on the wrong end of some questionable decisions this month, but most clubs do – especially if your club is big news. As always, blame FIFA.
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