Earlier this week, the SFA offered Garry O’Connor a retrospective two-match
ban after he allegedly dived to win a penalty in the victory over St. Johnstone
little over a week ago. Hibernian
responded by rejecting the offer, forcing a tribunal, which will convene today
to decide whether or not to uphold the ban.
The Hibernian decision to appeal cannot be based upon the innocence Garry
O’Connor, even their Assistant Manager Billy Brown admitted his guilt on Sunday
night’s Sportscene, rather their
appeal will relate to the severity of the punishment.
Even though the new rules, introduced by the Scottish Football Association
along with the new Fast-Track system, state that "No
player shall cause a match official to make an incorrect decision and or
support an error of judgment on the part of a match official by an act of
simulation”, the on-pitch punishment for the same crime only carries a
yellow card.
This poses the question: Is it just to retrospectively suspend a player
for a bookable offence?
Steven Naismith, the first player to receive a retrospective ban since
the introduction of the new system, was found guilty of elbowing Dunfermline’s
Austin McCann almost two weeks ago and received a punishment identical to the
penalty he would have incurred had referee Ian Brines noticed the incident when
it occurred.
The same cannot be said for O’Connor, however. Had referee Steve Conroy noticed the simulation by the former-Birmingham striker a yellow card would have been shown, a free-kick awarded and O’Connor would find himself available for selection for the
Motherwell match at Easter Road on Saturday week.
As it stands, the ruling today could see the ban upheld, and even
increased if the SFA deem that Hibernian are wasting the governing body’s time
through appealing.
Intuition dictates that a retrospective two-match ban is a harsh
punishment for a yellow card offence: We would surely find it difficult to
accept a player receiving such a ban for, say, jumping into the crowd or
ripping his shirt off whilst celebrating a goal.
A common retort in opposition to this line of argument is that the
severity of the ban should be greater since the referee was actually conned and
that the outcome of the incident had decisive bearing on the result. That is, not only did O’Connor commit the
bookable offence of simulation, his conning of the referee caused the referee
to make an erroneous decision and the
incident was central to the outcome of the match - the spot-kick allowed
Hibernian to take a 3-1 lead in a match they eventually won 3-2.
Nevertheless, I have doubts as to the strength of this defence of the
SFA’s decision. For instance, what if
the simulation had taken place in on the halfway line and Conroy had failed to
spot it? Would we still be having this
discussion?
The defender of the SFA’s decision may interject here and claim that
this is precisely why we are having this discussion, because it did take place somewhere that had a
significant effect on the outcome of the match.
This, again, fails to stand up to scrutiny. If we accept that dives inside the box,
missed by the officials at the time, are worthy of a retrospective two-match
ban, then surely we should also accept the same for free-kicks at the edge of
the area. These have a lower success
rate in terms of goals scored but, nonetheless, are potent weapons in the
armoury of certain sides. Regardless,
the point is that such a decision may have as much of a bearing on the
full-time result as the O’Connor incident versus St. Johnstone. Moreover, the referee was conned was still
conned in our hypothetical example.
This then extends to free-kicks awarded, say, thirty-five yards from
goal or around the halfway line. The
award of free-kicks in such areas when the player is guilty of simulation may
still lead to a goal which decides the outcome of a match. Soon we are on a slippery slope to the
conclusion that each and every piece of simulation, for which the officials
failed to take action, should be targeted by the authorities as worthy of a
retrospective two-match suspension.
We can take this example to extremes and show that even a Steven
Pressley-esque dive in a players own
penalty area may lead to a long up-field punt, be flicked-on and then stuck
into the net, leading to a 1-0 victory.
I find it difficult to accept that should this type of scenario come to
pass that the authorities would act in the same manner as they have regarding
O’Connor.
Therefore, the SFA either has to punish each and every act of
simulation it catches on camera, or else we are left with some arbitrary
cut-off point which, at the moment, seems to be whether or not the act took
place inside the box, with the extra qualification that it had a bearing on the
eventual outcome of the match.
Failing this, until simulation is deemed a red card offence, offering a
retrospective two-match suspension, a punishment akin to that of a red card
offence, is untenable. Instead, we
should stick to punishing the offence for what it is, a yellow card offence.
Amending the laws of the game so that simulation is worthy of a red
card would, of course, bring about its own issues. But until the authorities deem it so, when
simulation occurs, we are left to draw an arbitrary line between what areas of
the field are appropriate for retrospective punishment and which are not.
No comments:
Post a Comment