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. 

The FA must 'shake-up' the pre-match routine to save respect

Having read lots of articles and blogs on the subject of whether the FA should abolish the pre-match hand-shake after the refusal of Luis Suarez to shake the hand of Patrice Evra (the man he was found guilty of racially abusing) in the Liverpool-United clash at Old Trafford last weekend I thought I would share my thoughts.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said after the game that Suarez could have caused a riot, slightly over the top; however, Fergie continued that Suarez was “A disgrace to Liverpool and English football”. This I completely agree with. Suarez had the opportunity to put the whole thing to bed by a simple shake of the hand, but could the FA have done more by abolishing the pre-match handshake before the game?

I personally see the handshake as nothing more than a pre-match marketing tool where sponsors on shirts get extra coverage meanwhile TV broadcasters use the hand-shake to go to advert breaks. Rightly the FA will argue that the hand-shake shows respect between the two sides, however I argue that if the players genuinely respected each other we wouldn’t see some of the awful challenges that we see on the field and we certainly wouldn’t see scenes such as Evra’s pathetic celebration after the game in the face of Suarez which in Ferguson’s own words ‘Could have caused a riot’ in itself.

The FA already undermined their ‘respect’ campaign weeks ago when they decided to abandon the pre-match hand-shake between QPR and Chelsea players in the wake of the John Terry and Anton Ferdinand racial abuse accusations. The removal of that hand-shake appeared to have removed the tension between the two sides and a clean game was played between the two.

Where to go from here? In all honesty the FA must abandon the pre match hand-shake as soon as possible. The players don’t need to prove their respect for the other players before a game, their actions on the field should show that. It is nothing more than a PR stunt from the FA and must be scrapped. If they insist on keeping it then it should be moved to the end of the game after the players have finished. By moving it to after the game not only are the players showing respect to their opponents they are also teaching younger players to lose and win graciously as well as putting an end to the childish behaviour we saw from Evra and his team-mates after Manchester United’s win against Liverpool.

What do you think? Should the hand-shake be scrapped or does it promote respect?

As always let me know. 

Has racism been shown the red card yet?

‘Let’s kick racism out of football’ was set up in 1993 to do exactly that, but in this blog I pose the question, has racism been kicked out of English football?

The Premier League is currently investigating two cases of racism after Manchester United defender Patrice Evra accused Liverpool striker Luis Suarez of abusing him in their 1-1 clash at Anfield two weeks ago. Last week saw Chelsea defender John Terry also accused of racially abusing QPR’s Anton Ferdinand.

It would be wrong for me to suggest that either of the two alleged players are racists until the full reports are published, but quite frankly I find the fact that allegations like this are even being made in 2011 is sickening.  The Premier League currently has its highest percentage of foreign and black players in its 10 year history and it brands itself as the world’s biggest league, if that’s the case then any proof of racism should be met with the heaviest sanctions.

But are we right to assume that eradicating racism from football is possible? Bearing in mind we live in a society where people are quick to judge and mindless thugs continue to wander the streets of our ‘Great Britain’. John Barnes, racially abused while playing for England in the 80’s said recently that we were silly to believe that racism had been kicked out of football and he himself questioned whether it ever would be.

Contradicting that view though was manager of Manchester United now for 25 years, Sir Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex said he was ‘surprised’ that there were two cases being investigated, and ‘hoped’ there would never be a third.

It is clear that some western European countries still struggle at large with racism in football. Spain and Russia have received heavy sanctions from FIFA in years gone by as ‘punishment’ for their part in racist taunts, but is England in danger of slipping back to the dark days of the 80’s when black England players were abused by their own fans?

Thankfully I think we are not set to slip back to them ways. We are a nation that has currently possess some great black footballers, as well as having the most entertaining league in the world that involves some of the greatest foreign players of the modern era, and losing that over racism would be ridiculous, suicidal and damn right pathetic.

I hope that in both cases being investigated that both alleged offenders are found not guilty for the sake of the image of English football. It is true that England leads the way in the fight against racism; however, I fear that if Terry or Suarez are found guilty then our image as a nation is tarnished.

Do you agree? Is racism still happening in our game today or do you think we have ‘kicked it out’? If found guilty, how should Terry or Suarez be dealt with?

As always let me know.