FA Watch

[Dyed Petya]

I haven't calmed down enough yet to offer a rational response as to whether 'FA Watch' should concern itself with refereeing performances such as today's. In my fog of rage - which I can't unfortunately take my usual steps to moderate by having a few drinks, as I've temporarily given up booze - my instinct is that Monty's correct in his stance that this shouldn't be a major part of the campaign. Otherwise, things will just get bogged down in nonsense such as, "Our left back couldn't possibly have got his hand out of the way of that so the handball was never intentional," or, "How could the linesman fail to spot that their striker was at least four inches offside when that ball was played through?"

On the other hand, I can see some justification for refereeing decisions, in exceptional circumstances, being the starting point for some kind of action. Presumably the focus will be on the FA's response to dubious officiating and the trigger for action would have to be something along the lines of the referee giving a decision in favour of one team that he would never have given in favour of the other team.

Now, you couldn't frame things in quite those terms, of course, because it's almost impossible to prove. I'm furious today because I think that, realistically, there would have been ZERO prospect of Atkinson playing six minutes of injury time had Bellamy not levelled on 90 minutes and if it had therefore been us spending the added minutes desperately trying to score. Dredging my mind to think of something comparable, the one that immmediately comes to mind is the penalty awarded in the same fixture back in 1996 by Alan Wilkie: no way would a comparable foul at the other end have brought forward a similar verdict.

It's difficult, though, because, while I think that cases like these show clear bias and are the kind of exceptional case that justify a further interest, by taking it up you run the risk of being accused of bias yourself. I suppose the easiest thing to justify taking forward from today is the photographic evidence of the fourth official enjoying a joke with Ferguson while the game was still in progress but after United had scored. Mr Wiley wasn't exactly showing the impartiality expected of him.

I'm rambling and haven't come up with anything very helpful or constructive anyway. I'll have another go at doing better when I've had a night's rest and hpopefully calmed down a bit. OK, off for a mineral water now (f**king great!).

 

[PistonBlue]

ok, after pm's with monty we don't know if we should be contacting the FA about the ref and extra time?

The ref played 1 minute extra for Bellamys goal celebrations but only 20 seconds extra for Owen's. Both goals took about a minute to restart. I could do with knowing why, anyone else feel the same or should I just let it go!?

Absolutely we (FA Watch) should ask questions about this. Not that I think we'll get a satisfactory answer but it does need raising.
We all want consistency and as such we can only go off past incidents and the actions taken by the FA. In effect, a footballing case law.

First of all I would argue that as a general rule ref's do not add 1 min for every goal celebration, excessive or otherwise (by the way I'd like the FA to explain what they deem to be 'excessive celebration'). If they do, it should be common knowledge and transparent, so if a game is 1-1 after 45 mins then we can all know as a fact there will be at least 2 minutes added on. But this is simply not the case.

Secondly, if we are adding 1 minute for Bellamy's goal, then surely we must add one for Owen (case law again).

 

[without a dream]

As fucking disgusting as todays bias was, it falls outisde of the outline mission dtatement imo. We need to be careful to include all clubs not just make this a one club crusade wherever it may have started.

 

[Kirkstall Blue]

We wouldn't get the point back so I'm thinking its best to concentrate on the Adebayor incident where we do have a chance of reducing the ban they intend to dish out.
The FA still haven't replied to my E-mails, they must be struggling hard to find a standard reply for them.

 

[City Raider]

I haven't calmed down enough yet to offer a rational response as to whether 'FA Watch' should concern itself with refereeing performances such as today's. In my fog of rage - which I can't unfortunately take my usual steps to moderate by having a few drinks, as I've temporarily given up booze - my instinct is that Monty's correct in his stance that this shouldn't be a major part of the campaign. Otherwise, things will just get bogged down in nonsense such as, "Our left back couldn't possibly have got his hand out of the way of that so the handball was never intentional," or, "How could the linesman fail to spot that their striker was at least four inches offside when that ball was played through?"

On the other hand, I can see some justification for refereeing decisions, in exceptional circumstances, being the starting point for some kind of action. Presumably the focus will be on the FA's response to dubious officiating and the trigger for action would have to be something along the lines of the referee giving a decision in favour of one team that he would never have given in favour of the other team.

Now, you couldn't frame things in quite those terms, of course, because it's almost impossible to prove. I'm furious today because I think that, realistically, there would have been ZERO prospect of Atkinson playing six minutes of injury time had Bellamy not levelled on 90 minutes and if it had therefore been us spending the added minutes desperately trying to score. Dredging my mind to think of something comparable, the one that immmediately comes to mind is the penalty awarded in the same fixture back in 1996 by Alan Wilkie: no way would a comparable foul at the other end have brought forward a similar verdict.

It's difficult, though, because, while I think that cases like these show clear bias and are the kind of exceptional case that justify a further interest, by taking it up you run the risk of being accused of bias yourself. I suppose the easiest thing to justify taking forward from today is the photographic evidence of the fourth official enjoying a joke with Ferguson while the game was still in progress but after United had scored. Mr Wiley wasn't exactly showing the impartiality expected of him.

I'm rambling and haven't come up with anything very helpful or constructive anyway. I'll have another go at doing better when I've had a night's rest and hpopefully calmed down a bit. OK, off for a mineral water now (f**king great!).

Understand what your saying, intentional handball is a difficult call and not what we should be getting involved with. However I believe time keeping is different - it should be black and white. It's factual, or should be. We should know what gets added on for what - rugby league is so far ahead of us with time-keeping it's a joke.

For me, this is a perfect example of the consistency we mention in our mission statement. However I agree we have to be really careful about only being interested in incidents that involve our team.

 

[PistonBlue]

As fucking disgusting as todays bias was, it falls outisde of the outline mission dtatement imo. We need to be careful to include all clubs not just make this a one club crusade wherever it may have started.

But the mission statement mentions 'goal celebrations' and imo this is an integral part of this case, or at least the adding on of time for the celebration. I do think there is a need for clarity especially when the officials appear to add time for goal celebrations when it suits.

 

[Kirkstall Blue]

I have sent my first ever letter to an MP. and will post if I get a reply.

 

[Montgomery Burns]

Hi, Guys

So far we have 10 people who are going to help promote FA Watch on other clubs sites. We need another 10. To the 10 who have already offered their support, thank you so much. Once the list is complete, I'll post on here which posters are covering which clubs (with their permission).

If you would like to help, you'd be required to take one club and contact their Fan Forums (a list of forums for that club will be provided) You'll be given a message composed by Monty to pass on to the forums. Initial contact would be with the site owner or Admin/Mods of the forum. If anybody could help with this we'd be extremely grateful. Like I say, we need 10 more people, so please send me a PM if you could help.

When registering with a forum you'd be using the username 'FA Watch', there is already a poster on bluevibe with that name, if it's anybody off here, could you contact me please so that we can make sure that we don't have any overlap.

Thanks again.

You restricting this to Premier League club forums? A few of my mates are Derby fans so I could get this going on their most popular forum?

Timmy,

Yes mate, a decision was taken right at the start to restrict it just to Premier League clubs - otherwise it would have to be 92 clubs ans=d we just wouldn't be able to cope.

 

[Montgomery Burns]

As fucking disgusting as todays bias was, it falls outisde of the outline mission dtatement imo. We need to be careful to include all clubs not just make this a one club crusade wherever it may have started.

But the mission statement mentions 'goal celebrations' and imo this is an integral part of this case, or at least the adding on of time for the celebration. I do think there is a need for clarity especially when the officials appear to add time for goal celebrations when it suits.

To be fair Piston the reason for the inclusion of goal celebrations is that some people get booked (for leaving the field of play) whilst others don't - as we saw with RVP last week. This is something that should be very clear cut, given the referees are instructed to book someone who leaves the pitch - it is black and white and there should be no wriggle room on this, according to the instructions given to the referee.

But the added on time situation is certainly less clear cut in my mind at the moment, even though what went on this afternoon was unbelievably suspect to say the least.

For example, do we know for sure what the precise instructions are to officials in terms of adding time on - I'm not so sure, because if I read correctly a while back there was for example some time that could be added on for say time wasting at the referee's discretion. My gut tells me this is an absolute minefield in terms of what we are trying to achieve here, albeit we're all rightly angry and emotional about what went on - I know I am - and before we took an issue like this on I would like to be a little clearer in terms of the instructions given to the officials by the FA - because if there is discretion there's bound to be inconsistencies - it's where there shouldn't be inconsistencies where we should be targeting IMHO.

Also as a couple of posters have already pointed out, it would be better to ensure that this isn't simply about City getting a bad deal - after all, that was one of the reasons why we decided to widen this whole thing out to fans of other clubs. And is this campaign about us and 15 other clubs getting a bad deal or is it about the Sky 4 clubs gaining an unfair advantage by not being penalised for things others are - I'm probably not articulating this very well but it's getting late!

Anyway I'm still on the fence on this issue but it's obvious this is something that divides us all at the moment and we won't reach agreement before I get off to bed (5 minutes!). Maybe tomorrow is the time to have a think about this when we've all had a night's sleep to get this out of our systems!

 

[Montgomery Burns]

As fucking disgusting as todays bias was, it falls outisde of the outline mission dtatement imo. We need to be careful to include all clubs not just make this a one club crusade wherever it may have started.

But the mission statement mentions 'goal celebrations' and imo this is an integral part of this case, or at least the adding on of time for the celebration. I do think there is a need for clarity especially when the officials appear to add time for goal celebrations when it suits.

To be fair Piston the reason for the inclusion of goal celebrations is that some people get booked (for leaving the field of play) whilst others don't - as we saw with RVP last week. This is something that should be very clear cut, given the referees are instructed to book someone who leaves the pitch - it is black and white and there should be no wriggle room on this, according to the instructions given to the referee.

But the added on time situation is certainly less clear cut in my mind at the moment, even though what went on this afternoon was unbelievably suspect to say the least.

For example, do we know for sure what the precise instructions are to officials in terms of adding time on - I'm not so sure, because if I read correctly a while back there was for example some time that could be added on for say time wasting at the referee's discretion. My gut tells me this is an absolute minefield in terms of what we are trying to achieve here, albeit we're all rightly angry and emotional about what went on - I know I am - and before we took an issue like this on I would like to be a little clearer in terms of the instructions given to the officials by the FA - because if there is discretion there's bound to be inconsistencies - it's where there shouldn't be inconsistencies where we should be targeting IMHO.

Also as a couple of posters have already pointed out, it would be better to ensure that this isn't simply about City getting a bad deal - after all, that was one of the reasons why we decided to widen this whole thing out to fans of other clubs. And is this campaign about us and 15 other clubs getting a bad deal or is it about the Sky 4 clubs gaining an unfair advantage by not being penalised for things others are - I'm probably not articulating this very well but it's getting late!

Anyway I'm still on the fence on this issue but it's obvious this is something that divides us all at the moment and we won't reach agreement before I get off to bed (5 minutes!). Maybe tomorrow is the time to have a think about this when we've all had a night's sleep to get this out of our systems!