Football is of course a
physical sport. Heads can bang against each other when two players
are aiming an approaching ball, of course. A foot can accidentally
remain 'planted' into the ground during a normal type of body check,
resulting into a turning knee or ankle, possible. That's all in the
game. But what if you use football as an excuse to just lash out to
someone? Just for fun, because there's no law?
Let's go back to Sunday
March 17 – the horrendous foul made by Callum McManaman during the
1st half between Wigan Athletic and Newcastle United. The
action was gross and unnecessary. He stormed in wild with a stretched
leg directly aiming the one of Haïdara,
who got seriously injured due of that action and had to undergo
surgery.
The referee – Mark
Halsey – should had shown him a direct red card for that, simple.
Instead he decided not to. This might have been because he wanted to
lay the responsibility of judgement into the hands of the FA
disciplinary commission at Wembley, who could easily investigate the
video evidence. However, weird enough Halsey also didn't gave a free
kick to Newcastle – making himself look foolish.
Now
there is something I am very curious about: if you deliberate kick
someone on purpose, being excessively wild in your behaviour that you
do not care about the outcome to your action towards someone else –
what would it be named according to the law? The law is simple, as
secion
18 of the Offences
agains the Person Act 1861 will come into force.
It
is actually very weird when you think of it that the law doesn't seem
to apply for those who are on a football pitch. We again take the
Wigan v Newcastle game where there were Police officers ON DUTY who
witnessed the assault, who saw Haïdara
in serious
pain after the attack, and decided not to arrest McManaman. While if
you would do something similar (or even milder!) yourself on the
streets than you can be assured Police Officers will jump on top of
you straight away and take you into custody. But hey ho, not a
footballer.
The
excuse that it was McManaman début can be rubbished. He has of
course never played football in his life before and was still getting
used of the feel of the ball. That object he entirely missed while
storming in like a 6 year old – was due to inexperience.
And
the FA let McManaman escape as they were hiding behind their rule
that 'only one match official witnessed the incident'. Fair of
course: as did several Police Officers, as did a crowd of more than
twenty-two thousand spectators and as well did millions of people
world wide who saw it all live on their TV sets.
Let's
put on another fine example. Joey Barton his potential head butt
during Manchester City v QPR last May would have resulted into an
imprisonment of up to 6 months (!) if he did it OFF the pitch. Same
counts to Fellaini who planted his head into Shawcross last December.
The law even states that if you are being convicted to a head butt
for a second time, you could get up to a full year in jail. But of
course this does not apply for a footballer.
Footballers
got a role model function and should live by those standards. I
really want the rules to be changed that if a player is causing a
(serious) injury to an other player – the one who does the offence
would not be allowed to play any football until the attacked and
injured one is fully recovered. In this case it would have ruled out
the remaining of Roy Keane's career as his sickening kick on the leg
of Alf-Inge Haaland forever ruined his. This is probably the most
extreme example, I know, but players do are being 'kicked for joy'
quite a lot and my proposal will result into a fairer game in the
end.
below - normal challenge, of course
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