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After dishing out a 10-game ban when before a yellow card



What if the Football Association ran the legal system in this country? What a wonderful world that would be. The prosecution would appoint the judge and the jury and reimburse them for time and expenses, having first announced the verdict they would like to be reached.


The same offence could receive a £15 fine one week, or a 15-year prison sentence the next, depending on an entirely random set of circumstances. The burden of proof could be lowered until conviction was as good as guaranteed, and the judge’s summing up would come not at the time of punishment, but several days later when it could be written to chime with public opinion.


Laws would not be finite, but merely a means to an end and could be obeyed or adjusted to achieve the desired outcome. And they could be passed and applied retrospectively, as good as tailored to the behaviour of the accused.




Unexplainable: Luis Suarez picked up a 10-game ban for an offence that cost Jermain Defoe just a yellow card








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MARTIN SAMUEL: The awful truth is that waning Rooney could be burning out at Manchester United... 21/04/13
MARTIN SAMUEL: Keep calm... but leave your spoons at home 18/04/13
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VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

It certainly is a dream world. Robert Mugabe’s dream world, if we’re not mistaken. Franz Kafka wrote terrifying fantasies about courtrooms like this. Amnesty International deal with the reality.


The FA is increasingly a rogue regime in need of monitoring. Flushed with the success of banning Luis Suarez for 10 games for an offence that previously received a yellow card, the FA wishes to further nail its other racist bogeyman: John Terry.


The player said he wanted to come out of international retirement, the FA responded by leaking the news that if he did they would seek to ban him for contravening the England players’ code of conduct. This is interesting.


The code was unveiled in October 2012, so was not in existence when Terry committed his offence, was charged with his offence or convicted of his offence. Nor will he have seen the code in its final, official form, having stepped down from international duty in September.


Any trade lawyer could drive a coach and horses through this ruling; probably because it sounds as if it was cooked up in the Coach and Horses, five minutes before closing time.


Still, it has the same grounding in consistency and fairness as a 10-game suspension for Suarez when Jermain Defoe was booked for the same offence.


It is as if the FA has on file a list of unsympathetic figures that they can fall back on to fake a show of strength, whilst not alienating the multitude.


Suarez and Terry top the list obviously. The time to address biting was in 2006 when Defoe did it, but the FA chickened out. Now they have Suarez and a perfect storm in which a referee was blind-sided and missed the action, they can appear tough.


The same with Terry. A switched-on organisation would have worked out that international retirements are often temporary in modern times, so given Terry an England ban to run beside his absence from club football.




Let me back in, Roy: John Terry is ready to end his short-lived international exile from England





That is what France did to Nicolas Anelka. As good as done, following his expulsion from the national squad at the 2010 World Cup, the French Federation then banned him for 18 international matches anyway, just to be on the safe side.


Had the FA done this to Terry, whether just or not, retired or not, this present tumult would have been avoided. Instead, they left the door open, and now wish to board it shut with bogus logic.


Terry contravened a rule that did not exist when he was punished. This makes the FA a parody of proper, appropriate governance. Until their kangaroo court commissions and rulings are eliminated and replaced with a process that is fair, open and truly independent, every judgment will be soaked in controversy, and each verdict will raise more questions than answers.


Callum McManaman of Wigan is a fine player. The reason he is currently saddled with a reputation of a maniac, based on one reckless challenge against Newcastle, is because the FA failed to act when the world could see a three or four-match ban was required for his tackle on Massadio Haidara.


The incident should be forgotten by now. Instead, McManaman’s name is a buzzword for injustice in sport.


If the FA win support for this frantic attempt at damage limitation over Terry, it will only be because a surprising number of liberals believe in the death penalty. Not for murderers, naturally. The professional death penalty. The perpetrator of the crime never works again. No rehabilitation, no re-education. Wilderness, ho.


Suarez, Terry, they must be cast out, they must be made pariahs in the game, for they were guilty of racism.




Guilty: Luis Suarez and John Terry were both hit with bans for using racially abusive language





And racism is despicable, we know that. Yet John Barnes, one of the most insightful voices on the subject, believes all this posturing is meaningless without education.


And that is where the idea that Terry or Suarez forfeited their right to fairness with a thoughtlessly uttered sentence is misplaced.


Without evolution, without the principle that an unenlightened person can learn and understand and return reformed, there is no progress.


Instead, the FA picks its villains and, unloved by the majority, they are the soft targets on which the organisation can try out their most draconian penalties and rulings: 10-match bans or retrospective legislation.


Terry doesn’t come out of this well, either. His relationship with FA chairman David Bernstein broke down irrevocably, because he believed Bernstein misled him over the charge for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand.


Terry claims he was told the verdict of Westminster Magistrates’ Court would be binding, and the FA would only take further action if he was found guilty. Cleared, Terry felt the FA then stretched its rulebook to the limit to pursue its case against him, and his anger forced him to retire from inter-national football on September 23, 2012, the eve of his disciplinary hearing.


He felt he could no longer play for a team in Bernstein’s command, or shake the chairman’s hand in a line-up of players at Wembley.


On the only occasion the pair have been in proximity since, at a UEFA ceremony, he very publicly snubbed Bernstein’s outstretched palm.




Moving on: David Bernstein will step down from his role at the FA in the summer

Clearly, in wishing to end his international exile, he is motivated by the fact Bernstein will step down in the summer.


Everybody gets to pick their friends and if Terry does not want to shake hands that is his business, but to then involve the England squad and manager in his conflict is unimpressive.


If he is to proceed, Roy Hodgson may want assurances he will be selecting a focused footballer, rather than a seething bag of resentment, by returning Terry to the squad.


The idea, however, that Terry could be banned retrospectively does rather support his belief that the FA pursues trophy scalps, to bolster anti-racism initiatives that have not always stood up to scrutiny of late. Worse, they continue to deploy a disciplinary system that is random, vague, unfair and does as much to bring the game into disrepute as just about any act on the field of play.


The time to ban Terry from inter-national football was last October.


Retrospective action is therefore no hard line; it is an ill-conceived, unmerited exercise to obscure administrative ineptitude. As far removed from lofty principles as it could possibly be.
R&A use fair way to help out Rory

Golf's ruling body has done the right thing by Rory McIlroy, who now looks likely to represent Ireland at the 2016 Olympic Games.


McIlroy was thinking of not playing at all, so contentious is his choosing of Great Britain or Ireland. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club is almost certain to rule that, having played for Ireland in previous world championship events, McIlroy has to maintain that commitment.


‘I would very much like to take this burden of choice away from the player,’ said chief executive Peter Dawson. A fair judgement; kind, and correct.




Representing: Rory McIlroy now looks likely to represent Ireland at the 2016 Olympic Games
Wenger should fear Gill

Arsene Wenger says he is worried about a spending spree from Chelsea this summer.


Why? The new financial fair play rules will limit Roman Abramovich’s chances of buying his way back into top spot and the same goes for Manchester City.


It is Manchester United that Arsenal should fear. They have won the league at a canter and are now bolstered by regulations that will only make the strong stronger. United chief executive David Gill voiced his belief that City will also bounce back, but he knows he has hurt them.




Man with the right plan: David Gill helped push through rules to ensure clubs have limits on their spending

‘City have ambitious plans on their investment and academy,’ said Gill, as champagne corks popped. ‘But that’s the excitement of the Premier League. I’m sure all the clubs who missed out this season will be doing business in the summer, as will we, with a view to coming back all guns blazing.’


Except Gill helped push through rules to ensure all those other clubs now have limits on their spending, meaning United can outbid them on fees, wages and take their pick of the finest players, as they did last summer with Robin van Persie.


The much-vaunted excitement of the Premier League is soon to be history. Thanks to men like Gill, you’ll read about it in books.

AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT

It turns out many of our great Olympians and Paralympians are not so very different to those lousy footballers after all.


Remember how, when the Olympic love-in was at its height, footballers were derided daily as unworthy of mention in the same breath as our brave, selfless Olympian boys and girls.


Turns out it wasn’t so simple.


Given comparable financial opportunities and distractions, folk from other sports chase the money, lose focus and fritter their talent away, too.




Maintaining interest: The British International Disability Swimming Championships in Sheffield were poorly attended

Last week, at the British International Disability Championships in Sheffield, Ellie Simmonds finished two seconds shy of the mark required to qualify for the S6 100 metres freestyle at the World Championships.


She admitted that the distraction of post- Olympic media work may have been a factor.


Rather increases the admiration for the professionalism of Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs, who will be back next year at the age of 40, as hungry for his 14th league title as he was for his first.


Also puts into perspective those teenagers who allow their heads to be turned by football’s huge salaries or the glamorous lifestyle their profile affords. Except, never forget, when a Chelsea player goofs off that is Roman Abramovich’s money going up the wall; when Ellie Simmonds does the same, it’s yours.



Flavour of a month: Aidy Boothroyd
A German lesson

Aidy Boothroyd, once tipped as a future England manager, is now in the League Two play-offs with Northampton Town. His type is no longer fashionable.


‘In England, we suffer from hot topic syndrome,’ he says. ‘We decide Spain is the best team, so we all have to play that way. We decided we need manager’s wearing sharp suits and ties that match their shoes. We are quick to lose our identity.’


Boothroyd is right, of course. One only has to witness the fall-out from the wins by Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund this week to note that the magpies of Europe will soon be stealing from another nest.


Spain is so over and now we want to be like Germany. And, yes, there is much to admire in the German system, but there always was.


The German federation addressed a crisis in their national game 13 years ago by compelling all Bundesliga clubs to set up academies, with proper facilities and coaching from Under 12 to Under 23 level. Then they did the same with the clubs in Bundesliga II.


England were equally woeful at the Euro 2000 and the Football Association chose to attack this problem by throwing millions at a foreign coach, Sven Goran Eriksson.


In 2010, Germany were beating England — managed by a second foreign coach — 4-1 and now their clubs are the envy of Europe. It’s a mystery, all right. To us.


At first, it seemed Marcello Trotta was a hapless victim. The 20-year-old substitute, on loan from Fulham, was no doubt press-ganged into taking the 94th-minute penalty that would decide whether Brentford earned promotion, or entered the League One play-offs.


What a spineless lot in the starting XI. Why didn’t one of them take responsibility?
It now transpires Trotta went rogue. He wasn’t the designated penalty taker. The other players couldn’t get the ball off him. He missed. He deserves every unkind word that followed.

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