I've posted about this before but in light of Mark Halsey's revelations I wanted to have a specific thread to tell the story of how the FA/PGMOL clearly altered a report retrospectively to get the outcome they wanted, despite their own rules. No one should be in any doubt after reading this that Halsey is telling the truth. I was told this by a senior official at City so I know it's true and they they were very angry about it. One or two others on here (
@East Level 2) may also have witnessed being told this so will be able to confirm.
On Saturday 12th September 2009 we played Arsenal and won 4-2. We all remember that game for one incident, namely Adebayor scoring the 3rd goal and running the length of the pitch to celebrate on his knees in front of the Arsenal fans in the South Stand. He was booked by Mark Clattenburg for that and City were told at the time that this was for improper conduct over his provocative celebration (which was fair enough). He also kicked van Persie later on, an incident that Clattenburg was seemingly looking at but didn't take action over.
On Sunday morning, the then FA Chief Executive Ian Watmore appeared on BBC 5 Live's Sportsweek programme with Garry Richardson and was quizzed on the incident. He really should have said nothing (and I complained to the BBC over him being asked to prejudge an incident that the Disciplinary Committee hadn't even discussed) but said he expected a punishment resulting in a ban. So the dice was cast.
Here's an extract from the BBC's reporting of the reaction:
There an audio clip of Watmore's interview in the report.(
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8252803.stm)
On the Tuesday, the FA did indeed charge him with two offences. One was for improper conduct over the celebration and the other for his kick at RVP, which Clattenburg said he didn't see at the time but would have issued a red card if he had.
City queried the first charge however as it had clearly been seen and dealt with at the time, by Clattenburg issuing a yellow card for improper conduct so they asked how could a charge be issued when they'd been told this. The FA showed them the referee's report which stated that the yellow card had been issued to Adebayor for time-wasting, which was certainly NOT what was said at the time. This was despite the fact that it's debatable whether anyone has ever got back into their own half quicker than Adebayor did that day. (6 seconds it took by the way, compared to the 12 seconds it took Dzeko after his goal v QPR).
I (and others) were told all this by a senior club official at a Points of Blue meeting that Tuesday night so it's not speculation or rumour. The club were apparently furious over it and I've no idea why they took no action over it. Maybe the fact that Adebayor got a 2-game suspended ban for that had something to do with it.
The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the FA had to work out how they could issue retrospective charges over those two events, particularly the goal celebration which had already been dealt with, and that Clattenburg was told to alter his report.
