Not so long ago, the Football Association wrote to all clubs reminding them that how their players behaved on the pitch was their responsibility.
The behaviour of players covers a wide range of things but one of them is trying to con the officials, win penalties or get opposition players sent off.
Given the way Bruno Fernandes went down like he’d been clocked by a right-hand from peak Mike Tyson at the slightest brush from Ibrahima Konaté, it is not clear that the message is getting through.
Amid the wreckage of Manchester United’s 7-0 humiliation at the hands of Liverpool, Fernandes’s deception was little more than a footnote, yet it points to a wider and far more important issue that the PGMOL, which looks after the game’s referees, and the FA, which oversees the rulebook, need to get to grips with.
If you haven’t seen it, Konaté is dribbling with the ball near the halfway line when he sticks an arm out in an entirely natural fashion to protect the ball, with Fernandes approaching from behind his left shoulder. The hand briefly flicks Fernandes’s chin, then connects solidly with his chest, the forearm firmly holding the Manchester United midfielder away. Fernandes goes to ground, legs folding beneath him as though he has been dealt that knockout blow, hands clutching his face.
“Touches the chest, he holds his face, that’s embarrassing from Bruno Fernandes,” Gary Neville said on co-comms at the time. The following day, Gary Lineker also described it as “embarrassing”.
Cheating is another way to describe it. And though the FA can take retrospective action if a player commits an action worthy of a sending-off that wasn’t seen by officials, that doesn’t appear to be the case here. VAR checked for an elbow from Konate. There wasn’t one. So why wasn’t there a yellow card for Fernandes. And where’s the consistency?
Take a look at a recent incident in the Women’s Super League that caused quite a stir.
More from Football
Champions League on TV this week - full fixtures for last 16 and how to watch Chelsea and Spurs07 March, 2023
Leeds United's transformative takeover at risk amid relegation fight and misfiring transfers06 March, 2023
Callum Wilson isn't justifying his place in Newcastle's team - so why isn't Isak starting?06 March, 2023Manchester United’s Ella Toone was shown a red card for a clash with Tottenham’s Eveliina Summanen, in which Toone appeared to push the Spurs midfielder when she tried to get up from the turf. Summanen went down clutching her face, but Manchester United successfully appealed and – in a move that “disappointed” and “shocked” Spurs – the FA instead charged Summanen.
Toone’s three-game ban was quashed. And an independent commission ruled there was “successful deception of a match official” so Summanen was banned for two games.
Fernandes didn’t successfully deceive the officials. There was a VAR check for the elbow, which determined there was no elbow. Yet how is trying to deceive the match officials any different to successfully deceiving them? The intent is still there. It’s still a form of cheating. And don’t we want, above all, to eradicate cheating from the game? If the rules were fair and even, shouldn’t Fernandes be facing an FA charge and a two-game suspension?
From the officials’ point of view, for a referee to give even a caution for simulation they have to be 100 per cent sure. It is, I was told, one of the most difficult things to spot on the pitch.
The FA, meanwhile, can take retrospective action, even when VAR has checked something. As was the case when Douglas Luiz was sent off for “head-butting” Aleksandar Mitrovic last October. Luiz had the red card rescinded by an independent panel. And what happened to Mitrovic? Nothing.
It’s an extremely grey area that could perhaps do with some more defining in black.
And, regardless, Fernandes did what he did for a reason, and one of those is that this form of cheating has become ingrained in footballers.
Perhaps the saddest thing about it all, beyond one grown adult trying to con other grown adults in such a way, is that children and teenagers will see that and try to replicate it in their Saturday or Sunday league games. So not only is it ingrained in the players of today, it is already infecting the stars of tomorrow.
Abuse is forcing good people away
So awful to hear Stuart Webber, the Norwich sporting director, tell the Training Ground Guru podcast last week that he is looking at a future away from the game due to being abused in the street. Webber is 38 years old and has a great reputation behind-the-scenes in football.
“I’ve definitely gone more away from being obsessed with being in football all my life,” he said. “I think my future might be away from that. I love Formula One. Is there an avenue I could work in there?
“Maybe in business. I think, if anything, [what] the last year has probably taught me is: do I wanna be getting abused in the street when I’m 60? I’m not sure I want to be doing that, to be honest. I think it’s this game, and I love it. But there’s a flip side of it where I think it’s getting worse and worse.”
Do you get abused? Webber is asked. “Yeah, a lot.”
Norwich are, at time of writing, in the Championship play-off places, and while automatic promotion is unlikely they are still only nine points off Sheffield United, in second. They have become one of the top two tiers’ yo-yo clubs of the past decade, popping between the Premier League and the Championship.
Related Stories
Webber was appointed in April 2017 and, since then, the club have been promoted three times into the Premier League.
What do their fans expect? They’re Norwich.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/g7nTZmO
Post a Comment