Buzzin Football Blog

In the current climate of reckless double footed challenges being chucked around like cheap crimbo cards that don’t stand up on their own, the FA’s argument that to review an incident that had already been dealt with by the referee would undermine his or her’s authority is as wobbly as Tesco Value Christmas card.

More is done to undermine a referee by the FA’s inability to accept that times have moved on and that not all of the time the ref’s get it right, often not at any fault of their own. Not everything can be thrown at the door of the FA, though as the claim for the unfair dismissal of Zokora being rejected they are still more than capable of not holding their hands up and admitting they were wrong. Despite the fact they’ve a certain amount of culpability, the FA, as well as us punters, are being cheated by the players that throw themselves to the floor at the nearest hint of a touch that wouldn’t knock an old lady over, tickle them under the chin and they’ll go down like they’ve been sniped from the floodlights. And that’s even before they start throwing themselves at each other in ways that even Jackie Chan would be proud of.

I imagine the authority that could be wielded by a referee armed in the knowledge that should he be deceived, that any such deception would not go unpunished, would be greatly enhanced. Should he get something wrong due to the deception of a player that the due punishment could be justifiably dealt out regardless of any error at the time. Maybe an offence, that would no doubt hit the ’surround the ref’ mentality of the likes of Man Utd and Chelsea could be introduced that should teams decide that the need to surround and intimidate the referee that should their protestations prove false a suitable deduction of points could be forthcoming.

I do suppose that football is going to mirror life, in which a greater punishment is dished out for offences like fraud than physical violence, I’m sure whilst the errant prison officer canoeist is kept off the streets, you’ll find Joe mugger having a happy xmas back in Chav ‘ville. It’s the same with the FA, break the financial code and go in to administration and lose 10 points, break your opponents legs and lose….nothing.