Inconsistent Rulings

Recently we have seen the FA punish footballers such as Ryan Babel and Jack Wilshire for little off-field incidents on the social networking site Twitter. However we have seen them fail to deal with actual footballing cases on the pitch.

Babel posted a picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester Utd shirt on his Twitter after what he felt, as did many football fans including myself, was a poor game from the ref. He received a hefty fine and a spell in ‘Twitter Jail’. Wilshire also got in trouble for comments made about a referee and about the Birmingham City players after the Carling Cup final. These incidents were, at heart, merely passionate football players displaying their anger and disappointment at certain decisions- which any sportsperson can relate to no matter what level they play whichever sport.

What is much more serious in my opinion are the incidents such as Wayne Rooney’s elbow on James McCarthy or say Mathieu Flamini’s horrendous challenge in the Spurs v AC Milan first leg. Both of these incidents could have caused serious harm to the recipients, possibly sidelining them for a long spell or even ending their career. In Rooney’s case the referee missed it which is fair enough as they cannot see everything and in Flamini’s case the referee did see it but made the wrong call by only booking him. Both the incidents were caught on the TV camera’s and therefore should be able to be reviewed after the game. But no, the FA refuse to protect players and make the game fairer by introducing TV evidence which is effective present in other sports such as rugby and cricket. They waste time instead, by writing statements on how to use social networking sites correctly.

Tony Barret, sports writer on the Times, is one of the few who disagree here. His argument consists of the fact that making or correcting decisions after the game would undermine the referee’s authority and that what would happen if the camera’s and the referee missed it? I say that to scrutinise and correct a referee’s performance is a good thing in order to increase the standard. It is nothing personal against the referee but just like a player may make a few bad shots and get thrashed by the press why shouldn’t a referee’s bad decisions get corrected and justice be brought to the players? CCTV is used to catch criminals and therefore reduce crime, it does not dis-credit police officers when a crime is solved thanks to CCTV, so surely this is the same principal?