FA should focus on players feet rather than tweets

Today the Football Association stooped to a new low as they decided to charge Ashley Cole for an abusive tweet aimed at them while choosing to ignore the actions of Robert Huth, Cheik Tiote and Manchester United’s Robin Van Persie on the pitch.  

Cole who tweeted last week “Hahahahaa, well done £fa I lied did I, £BUNCHOFT****” was today charged and could face a fine in excess of £50,000 after the FA decided to ignore the Chelsea left back apology after deleting the tweet just hours after it was posted.

Cole is not the first to land himself in trouble with the FA over the John Terry racism row after Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand was found guilty and fined £45,000 for an abusive tweet earlier in the summer which labelled Cole as a ‘Choc Ice’. Terry’s race row has dominated the back pages for nearly a year now and the FA will be keen to see the saga come to an end.

The news that Cole has been charged will come as no surprise to most football fans who have now began to lose faith in the games governing body as they seem intent on kicking out criticism of themselves rather than violent conduct on the pitch, racism and homophobia within the game.

This weekend saw three incidents on the pitch which should have seen the FA use their powers to eradicate poor behaviour on the field rather than focusing their attentions on tweets off it. The first incident which the FA should have intervened took place at Anfield as Stoke defender Robert Huth violently stamped on Liverpool striker Luis Suarez.

The other two incidents both took place at St James Park in Sunday afternoon’s late kick off. Firstly Newcastle midfielder Cheik Tiote was lucky to not see red as he dived in with a two footed lunge and only escaped with a yellow card. The second incident took place minutes later as Robin Van Persie was clearly seen swiping an elbow in the face of Toon midfielder Yohan Cabaye.

It is disappointing that the games governing body has refused to intervene in any of these incidents when clearly if any of them were to take place in the street by me or you we would be serving a prison sentence for GBH.

The FA clearly needs to re-evaluate what their role is within the game of football. They must begin to learn how to take criticism and should probably accept that tweeting and social media now is a vital part of player interaction with media and fans.  The FA must focus on eradicating incidents that took place on the field at Anfield and St James Park this weekend.

Were the FA right to charge Cole but not Huth, Tiote or Van Persie?

As always let me know your opinion.