Do you ever get the feeling the Football Association just make up the disciplinary rules as they go along?
Well consider their actions over the last month.
Chelsea defender Jose Bosingwa somehow managed to get away with blatantly kicking Yossi Benayoun in the back and because the referee’s assistant claimed he saw the incident then no retrospective punishment could be handed out.
But more recently Leeds’ Jermaine Beckford will now be punished with a three-match ban for an elbowing incident against Millwall for which he initially received a yellow card.
Conveniently Beckford was booked for a pushing incident prior to the elbow, according to an FA statement – thus allowing them to slap a suspension on him later.
Don’t get me wrong, Beckford’s elbow was vicious and should have been punished with an instant red card but the retrospective punishment just smacks of the FA trying to rectify another refereeing blunder.
But if that is the case, why didn’t they contrive a punishment for Bosingwa, whose challenge at Anfield would have been punished on a rugby field.
The referee in Chelsea’s clash at Liverpool Mike Riley, who had earlier sent off Frank Lampard in controversial circumstances, admitted that, while he had not seen Bosingwa’s lunge, it had been spotted by assistant Mo Matadar.
How Riley did not see Bosingwa’s challenge is a mystery, but why if Matadar saw it did he not signal to Riley to send off Bosingwa?
It’s mind-boggling stuff and only the FA’s top brass know how they arrive at such decisions in their ivory tower.
By Phil Tomlinson, an online sports writer for Betfair – Check them out for Cheltenham betting odds.
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