if managers can "get done" by the FA for "bringing the game into disrepute" for complaining about referees, why can't players who are proved to deliberately foul an opponent that may have been missed by the match day officials?
Because the FA are pointless.
They can be provided the ref missed the incident.
Shawcross appeared to hit out at Cole off the ball in the Stoke-West Ham game.
He could receive a retrospective red card if the offence is considered serious enough.
What happened to the old idea of having the players police the game? Not saying bad fouls didn't happen before, but nowadays it seems to be getting worse. Maybe I am just remembering it wrong, but there were a certain number of players you didn't mess with and if they gave you a quiet word people would listen.
I always think we either have a 90 minute game plus and what happens in that time stays in that time including foolish refs and players.
OR we end the game and have a jury look at it and decide what the score should be and who should have been booked.
This mix and match approach is just confusing.
There was a story George Best told about an early match against an unnamed opponent who had a full international defender with a reputation as "very hard but very fair." After 20 minutes or so of running rings around the guy, Best started taunting him: "I've heard so much about you but the truth is you can't play. You can't play." The guy responded, "If you get anywhere near me for the rest of the match, YOU'LL never play again."
"Letting the players police the match" sounds good. Yes, it's fun to laugh about handbags and girlie shoving, but I remember fistfights on the pitch, players being ejected covered in blood -- and I'm talking about the old first division, not the lower leagues. I also remember that, inevitably, bad blood on the pitch that boiled over into physical confrontation almost always resulted in similar conduct on the terraces.
I've got no problems with the system now, as flawed as it is.
The human element in team sport (no matter what it is) is part of the game, and going back and punishing after the fact shouldn't happen in 99% of the cases. However, with today's technology and the number of cameras at matches if there is a horrendous foul or unsporting behavior that wasn't caught by the ref, but by video then I wouldn't have a problem w/match bans or fines. Of course that as Airfix pointed out would mean the FA would have to be organized and that doesn't seem to be likely anytime soon.
