bradley headstone
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Posted: September 4th 2009
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Well, that is the question isn’t it? Over the last few days we’ve talked of nothing else and whilst travelling in circles we appear to be back where we started.
It’s safe to say that the cause of the storm, Arsenal’s Brazilian Croatian, Eduardo did dive. Only the Ref, who on viewing the video declined to change his mind, does not think this to be the case. Therein lies the crux of this particular early season irritation.
Uefa start every season with a raft of measures to ensure ‘respect’ for referees. So when they show scant respect for this referee by issuing a ban to Eduardo despite his call, then the game’s up.
The predictable response was a number of cards for ‘simulation’, the anti-septic word for diving, one player sent off because he reacted to another player standing on his toe by writhing on the ground (only to leap into action when the ball came near) and a number of fairly straightforward penalty decisions ignored by hesitant refs who know not which way to turn.
I have no sympathy for Wenger or any of his myopic peers, nor Eduardo, though I do concede that if you are coming back from as brutal an injury as he sustained then I’d be leaping out of the way of a sixteen stone mad Polish goalie too!
I do have sympathy for refs though. Undermined at every turn, the impossible job getting harder each time they step out. It’s no kind of life.
If we want to use video evidence then why not take the decision out of the ref’s hands, what about considering citing a player, as they do in Rugby. An independent panel would then arbitrate and issue a ban if clear evidence was there.
Or, how about saying the ‘referee’s decision is final’ and getting on with the game?
…Maybe that’s too radical?