Prime Minister David Cameron’s role in Luis Suarez’s 10 match suspension has been questioned by Kick It Out chairman Lord Herman Ouseley.
A spokesman for the PM prior to the suspension said:
“As part of their [the football authorities’] consideration, I think it would be very understandable if they took into account the fact that high-profile players are often role models.”
Liverpool fans and journalists found Cameron’s comments on a football disciplinary issue to be bizarre, after all, Cameron did not comment on any other similar issues this season, and surely he has much bigger issues to be commenting on.
Ousely is quoted in The Mirror, saying:
“What the Prime Minister could and should have been saying was that the Football Association have a responsibility to sort out these matters, so that there is a clear process where everyone understands what the penalties are.”
“I didn’t hear the Prime Minister intervene in John Terry’s case, saying: ‘The captain of England has shamed England’.”
Ousely certainly has a point.
The FA are also criticised by football correspondent Oliver Holt of The Mirror, who writes:
What he did was shocking, animalistic and stupid and fully warranted a ban from the game.
But the offence was trivial.
No one was hurt.
The trainer was not called.
There has not been any suggestion that Ivanovic needed medical attention.
While The Guardian columnist Marina Hyde also asks why Cameron was commenting on such trivial matters.
In Wednesday’s Daily Mail Martin Samuel also criticised The FA:
We know what should have happened to Defoe, too. Instead, the FA will get their day in court and, amid a blaze of self-serving publicity, call it justice.
After the initial mass hysteria to the incident, the spotlight is now starting to turn to The FA’s judicial system and it’s lack of transparency.
What is clear, is that the inconsistencies are caused by the “retrospective” action ruling, which creates problems with when a referee sees an incident and when an incident is missed. The perfect example here of course being Suarez’s, which was missed by referee Kevin Friend, and the Jermaine Defoe bite on Javier Mascherano in 2006 which the referee saw and issued a yellow card for.
The FA proclaim a Respect campaign but fail to show Respect for the sport which they govern by constantly proving to be far from a transparent regulatory body. By not announcing who is on their three person panel who decided Suarez’s ban further muddies the picture in the case, as with all other FA disciplinary cases.
Liverpool will receive the “written reasons” for Suarez’s ban on Thursday when they will decide whether to appeal against the ban – something they have been advised against doing.
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