Fire the torches and sharpen your pitchforks, FIFA allows FFA to use video evidence against “divers”

Wayne Rooney and other well documented serial divers may soon be spending several nervous days after every match looking over their shoulders. Earlier today, FIFA announced that they will not stand in the way of the Football Federation Australia (FFA) or any other football governing body who wishes to use video evidence to retroactively punish players for offenses that the referee either didn’t see or that the referee got wrong.

This all started last weekend when Sydney FC played Central Coast Mariners to a 1-1 draw. The Mariners’ Argentinian import Patricio Perez won a controversial penalty in the 73rd minute with the referee sending off Sydney keeper Liam Reddy for what he saw as a foul.  Perez put the penalty kick away and the teams finished the game at a draw.

That would hardly be the end of that.

After the match, keeper Reddy appealed to the FFAs Match Review Panel (MRP) submitting an Obvious Error Application to have his red card rescinded. This type of appeal against a red card isn’t that unusual.  You may remember that John Terry had a red card rescinded back in 2008 after review from the FA upon appeal from the player.

What happened in Australia, however, was that the review panel decided that Patricio Perez had dived and chose to not only rescind Reddy’s card but ban Perez two weeks for simulation.

Perez has no appeal available to him, the MRPs decision is final, and he insists that there was contact. He and the club are so adamant that there was contact that they have hired a team of lawyers and bio-mechanics experts who are ready to prove in a court of law that the player didn’t dive.

But before the club took those drastic measures they looked to FIFA for a ruling on whether video evidence could be used after the match to punish players. FIFA as is typical, saw this as an opportunity to change the rules without going through a formal rules review process and basically said “go for it.” Oh, they also said “we hate diving.”

We deem diving as a serious issue in the game and something we feel strongly about. We hope that with serious sanction it will be a deterrent. We want to stamp it out.

It is a misconduct charge for the players – our regulations allow our match review panel to right wrongs they see that happened on the pitch

The problems here are numerous. Specifically, in Australia, the ruling of the MRP is final and the player is unable to appeal the decision despite the fact that he maintains his innocence and that several experts have come forward to add weight to the player’s appeal.

Moreover, Perez has been quite distraught over being labeled a diver in what was his first match in a new country. As all Gooners can attest, no matter what happens in the appeals Perez looks set to become the poster child for the anti-diving crusade in Australia and likely the rest of the world. I can say that judging by the fact that the Daily Mail is still to this day labeling Eduardo a convicted diver (in their caption) for an offense he was cleared of by video review, by the referee in video review, and by a panel of experts. Zeus himself could come down from Mt. Olympus and declare Eduardo innocent and the Daily Mail would run a week’s worth of columns pondering whether this Zeus guy is really the father of the gods or if he isn’t just some guy who knows a few really neat card tricks.

So, FIFAs ruling raises more questions than it answers. Instead of standing up and making a rule about diving, they have passed the buck and are allowing a review panel from the Outback to create a new rule for them. In the mean-time, they are standing up against a player and his right to clear his name in an appeal process which is simply disgraceful.

But I have to wonder where they will draw the line? Will clubs be allowed to appeal every single incident that does or doesn’t result in a call from the referee? That seems to be the path they are on here in their religious zeal to “stamp out” the worst crime ever committed on a football pitch: simulation.

I also find a deep irony in the idea that FIFA is basically introducing video replay, but only after the match is over. Only after the aggrieved team has lost the trophy will they be able to appeal to the local governing body and receive “justice.”

After all, we can’t have instant replay slowing down our games any more than Gamst and Delap do toweling off their balls. No, reviewing a play when it happens would take too much time. Instead of dealing with the game in the 90 minutes, we need to have the games adjudicated over weeks as lawyers and experts in biometrics argue every detail of whether a player was fouled or not.

In the end, players will not stop diving one bit because of this rule. If Wayne Rooney finds himself in the Champions League final, tied 1-1 with Arsenal, the ball in the box and Almunia rushing to claim, he will dive just like he has done time and again. He’ll even know the consequences and dive. What’s two weeks suspension at the beginning of next season going to mean to him when he has the warm comfort of the Champions League winner’s medal?

Dive on Wayne… dive on.

Waddle and Hansen are just glory seeking haters

Much has been made lately of Alan Hansen and Chris Waddle’s remarks about Theo’s “footballing brain” and I wanted to take just a few seconds to expose their comments as either intentionally controversial fabrications designed to elevate the two into the fore of the public’s conscience or just outright stupid comments made by people who have not watched the games they are commenting on.

Former Tottenham winger, Chris Waddle, kicked off all this discussion about Theo’s ability when he made remarks that were not so much criticism as they were invective disguised as criticism. Before the World Cup Waddle was recorded making a long rant about Theo’s ability to think without the ball. It was a meandering commentary that said contradictory things but the one that stuck out, because it was so definitive was this one:

I just don’t think he’s got a football brain and he’s going to have problems. Eventually he could play up front, but would he know where to run? Let’s be honest, good defenders would catch him offside every time.

It was part of the larger criticism that Theo has never progressed. That he was essentially the same player as when he played for Southampton:

I’ve never seen him develop. He just doesn’t understand the game for me – where to be running, when to run inside a full-back, (when to) just play a one-two.

It was a laughable comment from an obviously bitter old man. The problem is that there was a kernel of truth to the comment, Theo’s development had been stunted but not because he’s a footballing mentalist but instead by the multiple injuries he had suffered and surgeries he underwent.

In that same rant, Waddle made pains to compare Theo to Wayne Rooney and made the comment that by 21 Rooney already had the footballing brain that Walcott lacked. But if you look at the difference in total number of games that both players have gotten you can see why Theo might be a little behind England’s-greatest-ever-player-who-can’t-score-in-a-World-Cup-Final.

In all competitions to date, Theo Walcott has only played in 176 matches. In that same time (by age 21) Rooney had played in 292 matches. That’s an amazing 114 matches more than Theo or 60% more matches than the Arsenal forward.

The criticism is even more disingenuous because it imagines that we can somehow think back to Rooney’s 21st year without having our judgment clouded by what we know now about the player now. You have to remember that Wayne Rooney at 21 was the guy who had just been sent off by his own teammate at the World Cup and at the time people were talking about what a poor attitude the striker had. Since that season, Rooney has absolutely blossomed into the forward that he is today; a diving, cheating, Manchester United prototype forward who can’t score in the World Cup. And it’s only taken him an additional 124 matches.

I love the comment, though, that Walcott will never be able to stay onside. I spent some time this morning watching some of CWDs various videos of Walcott and if anything, Theo is one of the best strikers I have ever seen in timing his runs. He understands his pace and will often burn down the sideline and make a run from deep. He also has an innate sense of when to hold the line and wait for the ball. You can see examples of both points most clearly in his masterful performance against Blackburn:

There in the 31st second (of the video) you can see what I mean by his ability to figure out how a team is playing their line. In the 49th second, he lets the ball run across his body rather than take a touch and the only reason his marker is able to keep up with him is that Chris Foy allows him to pull the shirt nearly off Theo’s back. Then at 1:13 is where you can see an example of Theo making the run from deep so that he can fully explode past his defender. The shot is well placed there (something someone without a brain wouldn’t do) and is taken with power. At 2:42 you see that Theo has dramatically increased his upper and lower body strength as he shrugs off several defenders.

So, I think it’s pretty clear that Chris Waddle is, as we say in America, just a hater. Alan Hansen on the other hand is a glory hunter. It’s important to note that before his latest outbursts on Match of the Day many people were wondering if the program was even relevant in today’s media saturated environment. Hansen, then, needed something controversial to keep his program and himself relevant. So, what he did was actually a 100% reversal of earlier comments he’d made about Theo.

Before the World Cup, he wrote a column in which he said that Walcott had no natural instincts to play football. That if he was given time on the ball he was fine but that he had no clue how to play the ball instinctively.

It is no slight on a player to accuse them of not having a football brain. You either have one or you don’t. It is about natural instinct, the innate ability to see things before they happen. Wayne Rooney has it and Kenny Dalglish had it. When Bob Paisley used to say at Liverpool that, at the highest level, the first two yards were in the head, he was spot-on.

If Theo Walcott had that ability to see the picture opening up, that football brain, he would be a world-beater, but he has a long way to go and we still don’t know how he will ultimately turn out.

I had to go back and look it up because when I watched the video of Hansen on Match of the Day I swore that he said just the opposite: that his instincts were just fine, but that Theo struggled when given too much time.

What you’re always going to judge him on is not what he does well and what he does instinctively, it’s when he’s got time to think about it. That’s the big criticism, when he’s got time to think about what’s happening I think he struggles a bit.

It’s almost as if… and I don’t want to be accused of cynicism here… but it’s almost as if Alan Hansen’s criticisms don’t have any basis in fact. Rather that Hansen is taking something that a player does in one game and using that to paint the entire player with a broad brush. Almost as if he doesn’t really have a single point to make about Theo, but rather that he’s contradicting himself because his only real point is to just criticize Theo Walcott.

Now why would he do that? Because maybe, just maybe, he, like Chris Waddle, needed a convenient target to pick on that would be sure to get them a lot of press.

Mission accomplished.

Surprising facts from the unveiling of the “25-man squads”

As I revealed here back in July with my article titled In which I explain the “homegrown” rule so that even journalists can understand it the homegrown rule is, well, to be blunt, it’s fucking stupid.

Misunderstood by the xenophobic populace as a rule that is supposed to be forcing teams to play more Englishmen it is, instead, a rule which allows a team like Arsenal to dramatically name between 41 and 76 players (depending on which hysterical source you are reading). Well, I guess that settles it for Arsenal’s squad depth, eh?

I’ll explain the rule again, in the simplest possible terms, because I’ve read a lot of misinformation about the rule even to this day:

  1. No team may have more than 25 players over the age of 21.
  2. Of those 25 players, no team may have more than 17 “foreign-grown” players over the age of 21
  3. Teams can name as many under 21 players as they want. LITERALLY THOUSANDS.
  4. The rule doesn’t apply to Champions (or Europa) League, FA Cup or League Cup squads

The problem I find is that people are confused about the home-grown definition and what it’s supposed to do. Simply put, any player who went to an academy in England or Wales for 3/5 of the years between the age of 16 and 21 is a home-grown player and any player who did not, regardless of passport or the provenance of their father’s sperm, is not a home-grown player. They have to do this because the EPL is not allowed to have a straight up racist rule like “you must pick 8 people with English passports for every game” because it would violate the EU labor laws.

So, some funny things happen because of this rule: Cesc Fabregas, who father’s sperm is most assuredly Catalonian (at least according to chief sperm checker Xavi), is home-grown but Owen Hargreaves, who’s father’s sperm qualifies him to play for the English national team, is not. This happens because Cesc was trained in England and Hargreaves is the only Englishman to ever play in Europe, ever.

The other funny part about the rule is that it’s designed to give clubs with a robust youth program an advantage because the thinking is that they will bring more English youth up through their ranks. But again, this strength is also its “problem” because a club like Arsenal, with our insanely great youth program can name up to 76 players for the Premier League if we want.

So that’s the rule, that’s why it’s stupid, and this is the last time I’m going to talk about it until next year when the Premier League makes some kind of rule that you must have at least three freckled gingers on every team at all times or some such non-sense.

In the mean-time, what I did was took a look at every team’s submitted “25″ man roster and found the following odd facts that I’d like to report back.

Arsenal

Arsenal named 7 home-grown players to their 20 man, over 21 roster, and none of them are English (Bendtner, Clichy, Denilson, Djourou, Fabregas, Mannone, and Song).

The official roster on the dot com only lists 41 players, though the World’s Least Reliable News Source is claiming that we listed over 70.

Aston Villa

Stephen Ireland is considered home-grown despite being born in Ireland on a Cork Cob because he started his career with Manchester City. He is also a huge twat.

Birmingham

Birmingham named 25 players and as if to prove just how English they are named 14 home-grown. One of those players is Swedish born Sebastian Bengt Ulf Larsson, who earned his homegrown status at, you guessed it, Arsenal.

Blackburn

Fat Sam never misses a chance to criticize other teams for not playing enough Englishmen and thus ruining the English game, which is why he named a team of 25 Englishmen.

Just kidding, he named 8 home-grown players in his team of 21. One of whom is Swedish born Martin Tony Waikwa Olsson who qualifies because he trained with Blackburn as a youth. Keith Andrews also qualifies despite being born in Dublin because he trained with Wolves as a youth. Jason Brown also qualifies despite the fact that he plays for Wales. And their 8th and final home-grown player is Jason Roberts, the 32 year old Grenada striker. Way to go Sam, you are really helping the English national team with your contribution of 5 whole Englishmen!

Blackpool

Oh sweet, sweet Blackpool, you have named 14 home-grown players in your squad of 24.

Wait, something is very strange. The Mirror only shows 14 home-grown players but I’m pretty sure that Marlon Harewood and Brett Ormerod are home-grown. Also, as I look down the list Gary Taylor-Fletcher counts so by my count they have 17 home-grown players.

Also, I am shocked that the Mirror got some facts wrong. Shocked.

Bolton

Did you know that Fabrice Muamba counts as home-grown? That’s because as a youth he trained with… oh yeah, Arsenal!

Bolton also have named one American Footballer in their lineup with the surprise inclusion of linebacker Kevin Cyrill Davies.

Everton

For some reason, Everton only named a 21 man squad. Odd, especially since they have 9 home-grown players, including Tim Cahill who despite his father’s “Made in Britain” sperm plays for the Australian national team and qualifies as homegrown because he spent his youth campaign at Milwall.

Fulham

FULHAM NAME 25 ACTUAL MEN TO SQUAD, NO ONE CARES.

Liverpool

Named 21, 8 are home-grown, and one is a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Gross, I can’t believe that I am talking about Gerrard’s member.

Manchester City

What will £300m in transfers get you? A 25 man roster with 11 Englishmen! Well, Shay Given isn’t English and I don’t think he counts as home-grown but it’s real close with him. According to wikipedia, Given signed with Blackburn in 1994 but I can’t find any record of that. Oh well, who really cares? The point is that if your club only spends £300m in transfer fees and pays ludicrous salaries, they too can name a 25 person roster replete with Englishmen and chock-a-block full of home-grown players.

And still have room for no less than 6 holding midfielders.

Amazing.

Man U

Uhhh… why does the Mirror list every other team except Man U? Jesus, they are lame. Why do I read this trash?

Newcastle

Newcastle named 21 people to their squad and two animals: Joey Barton and Kevin Nolan. Coincidentally, they are also considered home-grown.

Stoke

Again, the window lickers at the Mirror (mirror lickers?) can’t seem to get their facts straight, but hey, when we are talking about whether Stoke have 16 or 17 home-grown players, does it really matter? They named a squad of 25 and they have 17 by my count (Danny Collins is home-grown, because Wales counts — HA HA SCOTLAND AND NORTHERN IRELAND!).

Congratulations, you have the most home-grown players of any team in the League. Enjoy the haughty feeling that comes with knowing that you are producing such English luminaries as Ryan Shawcross as you stare into the abyss of relegation.

Sunderland

Don’t really care how many or why but I did notice that David Healy (born in N. Ireland, trained in ManU) also has an MBE. He received the awardduring the Birthday Honors in June of 2008 which he quickly made even more honorable by doing his flute celebration one month later during a friendly against Celtic.

What a guy.

Tottenham

The England B side also named 25 players to their roster, which is a bit of a surprise considering that we all thought they would need to trim in order to stay under. But then again, when you have Robbie Keane, Jermaine Jenas, and David Bentley on your roster you sure can fill spots.

West Brom

Ok, I didn’t bother reading their roster.

West Ham

25 and 10. Yay, go England.

Wigan

Whoa, Wigan only named 19 players and only 7 of them are home-grown. They could have easily named at least 5 more players but they didn’t. I wonder why?

Oh well, a team of 19 isn’t going to cut it in the Premier League and I’m afraid that this is a pretty clear indication that they are relegation fodder.

Wolves

See, even Wolves named 25 people. Get on the band wagon, Wigan!

15 of their players are home-grown though, good enough for second place (or maybe third) in the home-grown count. Yay, you too will be relegated!

UPDATE

BWAHAHAHAHA… how did I miss Chelsea? I have no idea. Maybe it’s because their squad is so small? Just 19 players? Maybe it’s because their squad is so small because they only have 4 (FOUR!) home-grown players (Terry, Lampard, Cole, and Turnbull) meaning that they have a limit of 21 players over the age of 21?

Ross Turnbull???

Oh Jesus, this just made my day.  Thanks to the readers who pointed out that I missed Chelsea.