The FA have been hard at it of late.
First they managed to throw the book at Nicolas Anelka, not for being an anti-Semite, but for being pals with a bloody huge anti-Semite. The West Brom berk picked up an £80,000 fine, a 5 match ban and …a compulsory education course, Oh yes, and he lost his club their shirt sponsor.
Today we learned that Alan Pardew, a man with a veritable string of anger management issues to his name has collected a £60,000 fine plus a tiered ban over 7 games. For 3 games he’s banned from the stadium altogether, and for the last 4 he’s just banned from the touchline. This is in addition to Mike Ashley trousering £100,000 by way of a fine imposed by NUFC.
And today Younes’ red from Saturday’s debacle at Second Hand Fridge has been rescinded. Which is great news. Except it isn’t. Referee Micheal Oliver had an unimpeded view of “the incident” yet completely failed to spot that there was close to no contact, and that the 42 year old Samuel Eto’o plainly cheated.
Prior to this, Eto’o had made a a 3 course meal out of a tackle with Lloris, where too, there was no contact at all. Clearly Oliver bought the whole pantomime.
I have no idea if Chelsea would have still humiliated us, had we 11 men on the pitch. It’s a tough one to call. But handing Chelsea a penalty, a player advantage and then a goal, simply can’t be “made good” with a reversal of a card. Yes, the player is no longer banned, but it’s a cheap reparation.
I’m not suggesting referees are fined as individuals, I don’t believe that comparatively speaking, they earn a great deal. But would it not encourage the Premier League to have some fixed scale of compensation for clubs when their employees completely screw up games?
Modern football is all about the money. The difference between Champions League and no Champions League starts at about £30m.
[button color=”black” link=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/hotspurshalfhour/HHH120314.mp3″ target=””]Adam Richman vs Lady Diana[/button]
