I've just sent the following to the FA in response to their earlier standard non-response letter.
'Thank you for your response to my earlier query re the Jonny Evans incident last Sunday.
I am of course aware of the FIFA guidelines which generally prevent the FA from taking disciplinary action after the event on incidents which are seen and dealt with at the time by match officials. I say generally because there are always exceptions to the rule.
If one considers the 2009 incidents of Adebayor, Huth and Wright-Phillips, the referee in each instance either did not see the incident at all (Huth) or despite facing the incident and being only a matter of feet away did not see the incident directly, as he could not see what happened from the angle he was facing.
Following an inquest in each of the three incidents in the media and in particular on Match of The Day, when Messrs Lineker, Hansen and Shearer deemed there to be a case to answer, the FA asked the referee to review the matter and consider whether he would have taken action had he seen the incident in full. Charges of violent conduct followed in all cases.
The question at the heart of this matter, as I invited you to consider, is whether Mr Atkinson saw the incident in full, or whether he made a highly debateable call based on what he thought he saw.
Your answer did not directly address this central point, so before I contact Mr Hackett as suggested could you please confirm Mr Atkinson’s match report confirms he did fully see the incident in question and that he felt there was no need for the matter to be reconsidered.
As said to you before, the aims of ‘FA Watch’, as stated on our website at <a class="postlink" href="http://www.fawatch.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">www.fawatch.org</a>, are to ensure the laws of the game are applied in a fair, objective and manner.
This is of course something you should be doing, and the lack of faith in your organisation in this regard was one of the principle reasons for setting up ‘FA Watch’.
One of the purposes of this organisation therefore, which has attracted recent media interest from the Daily Telegraph and the BBC, is to monitor the FA’s performance of its disciplinary function and this we will continue to do.
Officials of ‘FA Watch’ are of course happy to meet with you to discuss matters of mutual interest and this invitation remains open-ended'.
I think we should get the 'how dare you contact me again' stage 2 response from them early next week.
Copies of the e-mail to the FA will be sent to the usual media outlets as a matter of course.
And if you're interested in what we're trying to do then you can always pop in to <a class="postlink" href="http://www.fawatch.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">www.fawatch.org</a> when you have a few moments spare.
Mark
