FA Watch

[kippaxblue76]

IMO if Tevez had scored in the derby and celebrated like Adebayor did and then Neville did his celebration there would be no charge against Tevez, the reason Bellers got off is because they didnt want to charge Neville. I think i have explained that ok :)

 

[hello]

whats the hold up with the fawatch.org site?

Still showing the setup page nearly a week down the line.

By all means take time to get the site right in the background, but this has been passed to the public domain, surely a simple homepage should be up and theres been a fair few offers of help in setting this up.

 

[coulsonblue]

whats the hold up with the fawatch.org site?

Still showing the setup page nearly a week down the line.

By all means take time to get the site right in the background, but this has been passed to the public domain, surely a simple homepage should be up and theres been a fair few offers of help in setting this up.

impatient git

 

[hello]

Not being impatient,

Just that as it is currently almost anyboby can gain access the site configuration and put whatever they like about it.

I would be all for taking time to get it right and make it a professional as possible, but I would recommend doing it in the backgroud with a simple redirect on the live site saying its under contruction type scenario.

 

[SWP's back]

Has anyone got it a link where it clearly shows that Ade was booked for timewasting or are we summising?

 

[moonbeams]

Has anyone got it a link where it clearly shows that Ade was booked for timewasting or are we summising?

I've been looking but can't find anything official, all I can find is people saying it on other forums.

 

[SWP's back]

Has anyone got it a link where it clearly shows that Ade was booked for timewasting or are we summising?

I've been looking but can't find anything official, all I can find is people saying it on other forums.

Though that may be the case. Once someone says it - it doesn't take long nowadays for that to become gospel.

 

[Montgomery Burns]

Good morning all and well done on all your work so far. I hope I can contribute in some small way with my thoughts.

This generic message has been posted on the board by a number of fellow blues.

Finally got a reply to the message I sent to the FA last Monday .It seems to be a bit different to other one's if seen so far:

Dear Ben



Thank you for your e-mail. The Football Association receives frequent correspondence on individual refereeing decisions across all levels of football as well as on the performance of referees in general. Every supporter will have an opinion on the game’s major talking points and we’re always interested to hear them. It's a revealing fact that for every piece of correspondence we have from supporters complaining of a bias to a particular club we have the same amount claiming a bias against that club.



There are set procedures in place for when The FA can take retrospective action in relation to incidents that have not been seen by the Match Officials at the time, as was the case recently with Emmanuel Adebayor. We can only bring additional charges in exceptional cases, for example, when a referee indicates in his/her match report that an incident went unnoticed, The FA can then be requested to review the incident. In contrast, if an incident was witnessed by the referee at the time, The FA generally has no power to take retrospective action, due to FIFA directives.


Whilst 100% consistency is impossible when human judgment is introduced into a situation, referees get the overwhelming majority of decisions correct. In fact they are arguably the most consistent people in the game making split-second decisions that will be analysed repeatedly by slow motion cameras and panels of football experts. The FIFA Laws of the Game stipulate that we cannot re-referee matches by issuing or upgrading cards on incidents that the referee has witnessed.



Supporters often compare incidents with others and ask why the same actions are not taken. This is simply due to no two incidents being the same. The Football Association takes its disciplinary procedures very seriously and judges each case on its merits.



With regards to Robin van Persie’s goal celebration, having reviewed the incident and spoken with Greater Manchester Police and the Match Official, The FA have contacted Robin van Persie to remind the player of his responsibilities as a professional with regards to his future conduct. No further action will be taken.



We do appreciate all of the feedback we receive from supporters. This feedback is collated and used to build a picture of public opinion and is subsequently fed back internally within the organisation. Please rest assured your suggestions will form part of this feedback process.



Kind regards



The Football Association

The paragraphs coloured above rather than answering any points raised give some further points for the FA to answer.

1 If there are set procedures in place what are these procedures and are they open to public scrutiny?
2 If the FA generally has no power to take retrospective action due to FIFA directives. Are the set procedures in 1 sanctioned by FIFA?
3 If the FA can take retrospective action in relation to incidents that have not been seen by the Match Officials. And the FA can then bring additional charges in exceptional cases if a incident went unnoticed, how would a FA or Match Official know something had been missed??? This could only be from an agency outside the football world i.e. Press or TV reports surely. The use of TV evidence on the day is constantly refused by the football authority's on the basis of singularity from the top of the football food chain to the bottom.WHO if this is the case brings the indecent to the attention of the referee presumably after reading the referees report to see if it has been reported or not and HOW is the referee informed of something he missed? Is there an official process open to scrutiny not just a quick phone call from someone.

I personally don't see you getting far with your aims by bringing up individual 'irregularities' though if you continue along this route I hope you are successful.(See the last sentence from paragraph one of the FA response above.) Maybe it would be worth while having a campaign for specifics such as, Referees reports to be published on the FA web site or for action only to be taken by the ref during the game?

I think also that you will have more success once the FA Watch site is running, why would a fan from an opposition team to City feel confident in the aims of an organisation formed and populated by posters here. I hope I am proved wrong with this thought as I genuinely wish you success. A clear mandate with simple aims would imo help you become more attractive to what could be described as the opposition.

The paragraph bellow obviously states what the FA sees as it's legal stance on correspondence.If you are committed to taking on the FA then this could be turned against them further down the line as a newspaper could be interested in a story along the lines of, huge secretive organisation takes steps to quiet the voice of the fans, type thing. If a legal fund needs to be raised you can count on me to make a contribution.


This communication contains information which is confidential, which may be privileged, and which is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not an intended recipient please note that any distribution, disclosure, use or copying of any part of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error please notify us by return email or by telephone on 0844 980 8200 and delete this communication and any copies of it. The Football Association does not warrant that this email is free from error, viruses, malware or defects, or is compatible with your equipment or fit for any purpose and may monitor, intercept and block emails addressed to its users or take any other action in accordance with its email use policy.

Statements or opinions may be expressed in this communication that are personal to the sender and do not necessarily represent the views of The Football Association. Unless expressly stated otherwise, The Football Association is not bound by any contract or obligation purported to be created by this communication.

This communication has originated from the communications system of The FA Group.

I am far from am expert on FA or FIFA law and would be interested to hear he views and opinions of the posters on BM particularly with the points 1 to 3 above. If the consensus is that further understanding of these or any new issues or requests are required I would propose any further correspondence be made to an individual rather than some generic web site address as this would negate the paragraph above which starts ''Statements or opinions''.

Good luck

Sam,

Thanks for this - I'm doing a generic response to things that have cropped up today but i need to respond seperately to this. The main thrust of what you say about the transparency of the FA's policy is of critical importance and will be taken up with them.

I understand what you say about the 'all views expressed 'etc bit and you are right to be concerned. However my experience so far is that they have been instructed not give these internal e-mail addresses out to members of the public, and that is one rule they seem to stick to consistently. It's nice to know there can be some consistency within the FA!

 

[Montgomery Burns]

Hello, it’s me again – I’ve been like an absent father the last couple of days and what with spending most of the afternoon in bed (in a Holby City rather than a S*x in the City way) what I’m going to do is to do one big generic reply to all the posts that I think I need to respond to since this morning. Here goes then:

Chippy boy said earlier tonight:

We are going into FAR too much detail and thought regards Adebayor and the rags match. That's ok on here - that's partly what Bluemoon is for.

However the whole premise for FA Watch is that these unfairnesses happen all the time, week-in, week-out. If that was not the case, we wouldn't have any need for an initiative in the first place.

So we don't need to dwell on any particular one of them. It makes us look partisan, not objective and it really weakens the power of the argument.

imho FA Watch needs to be careful not to fall into this trap. It needs to be much more crisp. Factually recording evidence, demonstrating inconsistency and asking for clarity. The power of the message is lost if we get into endless debate about nuances of every incident.

e.g. "In match X dated <>, player A kicked player B and went unpunished. Why is no retrospective ban being applied?"

next

As the list of factual incidents grow, and the FA produce piss-poor excuse after piss-poor excuse, their postion will become more and more ridiculous and pressure on them will grow and grow. Let's not get buried in the weeds.



That sums things up for me. Let me explain.

The one thing I notice is the confusion about just what exactly the campaign was set up to do and what it wishes to concentrate on – whilst many have picked up on this and tried to refocus us it is probably a good time to set my thoughts out again to make things clear as I see it.

The campaign was never about:

• Diving
• Penalties
• Deliberate handballs
• Added time
• Anything that happened in non-Premier League matches

for a variety of reasons. If we go back to the start of all this I said I wanted to concentrate on black and white issues where referees were acting not in accordance with their instructions.

We all wanted to see consistent refereeing decisions and whilst there were a number of grey areas such as some of those mentioned above, where the referee had to make a subjective decision, there were also some key areas where there was no such ‘wriggle room’.

Yet in these areas, our perception was that whilst non-Sky 4 club players tended to be dealt with by the letter of the law, the players from the Sky 4 clubs often ‘got away’ with similar offences.

These black and white issues were the areas identified as being the one with the most potential in terms of making the FA answerable to their rule book.

The trigger to this campaign was of course the events of 12 September, when we felt we got the rough end of decisions in that other players (RVP in this case) got away with things whilst Adebayor was marked out as being worthy of going on America’s Most Wanted List.

Memories of Shaun Wright-Phillips’ treatment at Stoke last year compared with Rooney and Ronaldo’s arguably worse yet unpunished behaviour at the same ground just one month earlier were evoked, which was responsible in large part for my world class rant and the subsequent launching of this campaign. Oh and there was the assault of Vidic and Rodallega that passed without action as well.

So what I said then was that I wished to concentrate on was on future acts of violent conduct, contrasting them and comparing them to the punishments meted out to Adebayor (and of course SWP) plus of course the goal celebrations, where some players got booked and others didn’t.

Those aims apply today as much as they did last week and whilst I understand the emotions of the many who have expressed fury at the numerous incidents that have occurred that I would put into the ‘other category’, my view remains that I want to remain focused on the things I originally identified and bring fans of other Premier League clubs aboard to this campaign who share this vision.

I realise I may seem timid to some who would prefer I go further. But as things stand, that is how I want things to play out. I do hold out the possibility of extending this to clubs in other leagues as has been suggested by a number of people, but not yet. We have to ensure we are on sound footings before we expand too quickly, in my view.

There has, in the past week, been much debate about the precise wording of some of the laws of the game, and the interpretation of these. That is not surprising, given that we see from the referee‘s forum that was posted up that the officials themselves can often be confused about some of the same things!

It is clear to me that we need help in this area, to have someone working with what I will euphemistically call the ‘main board’ to ensure we know the rules of the game as well as the FA do – this means we know the right areas on which to challenge and importantly those when not to. I know some of you have already done some great pieces of research in this area and display a great passion and aptitude for this kind of work – if you wish to come on board and contribute more in this specific area then please PM me.

There are a number of other key roles that we have identified as needing to be filled. Time commitments to these will all vary of course, but we need a structure in place to ensure that we know certain key areas are always covered and that we can rely on these people to ensure these tasks are done; a classic example is Moonbeams who has marshalled together an impressive number of volunteers to take our message out to other clubs – thanks to everyone for this, your support has been fantastic and encourages us all.

The other roles include that of what I would call ‘Incident co-ordinator’ that is, someone who will head up a team of ‘spotters’ – people who will devote their lives to watching football matches (what a job!) and reporting incidents of note back to a central point, namely the Incident co-ordinator’, who would liaise with me directly, as I would take these issues direct to the FA..

We have someone in mind for this position who I am in discussions with about how this is to be taken forward, but I see it being run on the same lines as the Moonbeams team – one person heading up a team of volunteers, who do the dirty bit. This campaign mirrors life! I will hopefully be able to announce the name of the person who will head this work up very shortly.

We also need people able and willing to contribute articles for our upcoming blog. I’m delighted to say we’ve already got two volunteers for this, namely Richard and Prestwich Blue. Thanks to them both for volunteering their time and skills to us and we look forward to being both informed and entertained on a regular basis. No pressure there then!

It is also possible we will need/get more volunteer journalists to help us. Prestwich Blue has very kindly agreed not only to write articles for us but to be our blog Editor, in so much that articles published on the blog will be scrutinised in minute detail by him before publication. Anything that you want putting on the blog (and we would encourage people to do this, to keep everything fresh) should be submitted to Prestwich Blue please).

We always need volunteers for the day to day stuff that arises, either as one-off jobs or something specific such as the work in Moonbeams team or for that matter the Incident Co-ordinator’s team. If you feel able to help then please PM Moonbeams or the Incident Co-ordinator for work in their area, or Sam the Drummer for anything to do with the website (programming, maintaining sites, technical etc) or me for other stuff.

I have also been contacted by people with names of well known and high profile people who, it is suggested, may be able to provide public support for the campaign and endorse what we are doing. Such public support would be most welcome. I haven’t as yet had time to do anything about this but if anyone is prepared to make contact with these people on our behalf I’d be most grateful – please PM me for details. It would be useful if these people if nothing else gave us permission to say they supported the aims of our campaign and what we are trying to achieve – a few quotes wouldn’t go amiss either! The information would then be passed to me and I would arrange for it to be included on our website

Similarly there have been a number of suggestions about contacting MPs, again to publicly support us. Whilst it would be great if they would ask searching questions on our behalf and make some interesting allegations under the cover of parliamentary privilege, more realistically it would be great if we could have their permission to say they support the aims of our campaign and what we are trying to achieve. For us to take this forward I would simply need someone to co-ordinate this – be a point where the people who had contacted their MP could report to. The co-ordinator would then collate all the information and pass it to myself, who would arrange for it to be included on our website.

I see I’m quickly moving down a list of people who I want to thank for their help, and whilst I know this is starting to get the feel of an awards ceremony (FA Watch Hall of Fame?) I might as well plough on now that I’ve started.

We have a number of people working on our behalf behind the scenes and my thanks go to them (and indeed anyone who helps us) for what is often unsung work, but nonetheless vital work that can go unnoticed. Step forward City Raider and Dyed Petya, who are currently working on our Aims and Objectives and a list of Frequently Asked questions that will in time be published on our new website. By its very nature this is the kind of work that does not attract many volunteers so a special thanks to them and also Prestwich Blue once again, who is also contributing in this area.

Special thanks also go to Sam the Drummer, Damocles and 100% manc who are working behind the scenes on setting up the website, sorting out its design and making sure it doesn’t fall over when it goes live. And special special thanks goes to Ric of course, for putting up with me invading his site and supporting what we are trying to do, providing all sorts of technical assistance that we simply couldn’t do without.

And thanks to Not My Fault, our very own Media officer who has responsibility for dealing with the press, TV and radio when they come beating a path towards our door.

So as you can see, people are working hard behind the scenes and the real action will start shortly when our website goes live - sorry for the time this is taking, but this isn’t something easy to do and takes time - and Moonbeams team of volunteers spring into action to recruit more people to the cause.

If I’ve missed anyone off this eulogy then I apologise straight away for my incompetence – you know who you are and the importance of what you’ve done for us – in my defence I’d say it’s not easy being this old you know!

Thanks once again to everyone for everything.
Moving quickly to some of the specifics covered by people today, it’s quite clear that the lack of a clear, transparent process enables the FA to come up with an outcome where they can claim Adebayor was booked for time wasting, rather than goal celebrations, thus enabling them to charge him later with improper conduct for the goal celebration. From my standpoint and many others this seems little more than a stitch up of an organisation desperately and belatedly trying to cover its back - indeed, as has been pointed out, they had previously announced that Adebayor HAD been booked for his goal celebrations, so they can’t even lie straight!

As Dyed Petya mentioned, there seems little doubt Adebayor was booked for his goal celebration, but many people feel the FA have painted themselves into a corner due to their duplicity. If Adebayor ends up being found guilty over the improper conduct charge (and many of us feel this is almost inevitable due to the determination of the forces behind this action) it will be interesting to see what sentence will be passed. Will it be consistent with what they meted out to Gary Neville, or will an example be made? This decision could play a big part in how this campaign develops.

It will be fascinating to see how this plays out and what defence City comes up against this – as it has been said they read this website and employ lavishly-paid lawyers I’m sure they wouldn’t have missed what the eagle-eyed people on here have spotted, and will hopefully be able to demolish the charge as put.

As for the future, it can be argued the FA have set a precedent by booking Adebayor only 30 seconds after he scored the goal against Arsenal. The FA of course would argue differently, saying that it was one of those discretionary areas where officials are empowered to use their judgment.

What I would be interested in is how long it took from Adebayor scoring to Arsenal kicking off again, including the time taken to book him. Can someone work this out please?

We would then need some determined individual to log times between all goals scored and restart to help us build up a dossier to prove what a load of tosh all of this is and show, on the balance of probabilities that the changing of the FA’s position from goal celebration to time wasting was simply to get around the FIFA directive that nobody could be charged once the referee had already seen the incident.

It strikes me that this is something that could be done by the Incident Co-ordinator’s team, whilst they are assiduously watching all these games of footy on our behalf – Incident Co-ordinator (you know who you are) – can you add this to your list please!

(I suppose data of this type over a period could disprove the theory that times is added on for goals scored – whilst I have said I don’t want this issue to be a central part of our campaign it would be interesting to see what the stats show, simply as a by product of looking at something we were looking at anyway – watch this space).

Edit: One final thing – if anyone can tell me how to copy PM’s to more than one person at the same time I’d be most grateful.


Mark

 

[concernedofStockport]

The campaign was never about:

• Diving
• Penalties
• Deliberate handballs
• Added time
• Anything that happened in non-Premier League matches

for a variety of reasons. If we go back to the start of all this I said I wanted to concentrate on black and white issues where referees were acting not in accordance with their instructions.

this'll probably go down like a lead balloon but still

Wouldn't it be better to concentrate energies on supporting the team, stop this "FA Watch", it's really making everyone look ridiculous, ffs other fans can read the forum And the only reason it'll bring the press TV and radio beating a path to the door will be to have a good laugh. Sorry but the truth hurts