Hereford United – Rough Justice

What is the Football Association playing at? Two clubs in the bottom tier of English football made an error by not filing the transfer deadline paperwork on time for two new players – Hereford’s Rob Purdie and Torquay’s Jake Robinson.
It appears that both Hereford and Torquay made a genuine error, alerted the FA to their mistakes immediately, but now face a three and one point deduction respectively.

Fortunately the only game affected by the two ineligible players was fought out the day after deadline day between … Hereford and Torquay. Therefore no other club was involved. Neither of the two clubs benefited from the error on the pitch and so the other twenty two league clubs didn’t suffer.

So, as lower league football becomes increasingly cash strapped, the FA have stepped in to possibly prevent one team from winning promotion – Torquay – while it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Hereford could well slip out of the league altogether. Two 'possible' financially crippling scenarios.

I’m not saying that clubs, players and officials shouldn’t be punished for flaunting the game’s rules. They should. But the FA needs to be sensible and realistic about the punishment they hand out.

In this case, a simple slap on the wrist consisting of a hefty suspended fine would have been sufficient. What about £20,000 for two years? That would focus the attention of the office staff every deadline day.

But the people FA don’t think like that. It’s an organisation in turmoil. It doesn’t really have a great say in what goes on in the top flight of English football anymore. It lost nearly all credibility in the build up to the World Cup bid and then lost more during the bidding process and vote.

The friendly international fixtures it (and UEFA) arranges are coming in for criticism from clubs, players, pundits and fans.

And wasn’t Benjani’s transfer to Manchester City and then a couple of years later to Sunderland, completed a day (or even days in the first case) after the transfer deadline had closed? Who sanctioned these moves? The FA must have done.

It appears to me that FA is scared stiff of the Premier League who pay merely pay lip service to the rules and fines as they laid down by the European and World governing bodies. But is the FA strong enough to take on the bigger clubs and wield a big stick when neither they nor their players step out of line? Doubtful, but it is much easier to get heavy with the smaller clubs who haven’t got the power or resources to fight back.

But what happens when the rich clubs finally say enough is enough and cut their ties with FIFA and UEFA and set up a new governing body? Some people say that it will never happen, but why not? The Premier League (Premiership) clubs of the early 1990s effectively changed the way the English game was being run and wrestled a good deal of power and finance from the FA.

Maybe at that point the smaller clubs will fall in behind their richer counterparts and the FA will be left with what it deserves … the Wembley debt and little else.

But I digress a little.

I don’t know too much about Torquay, but I can’t imagine that they are too dissimilar from Hereford which is a club run by decent people and who have many journeyman professionals earning a fraction of the sums their colleagues in the two top divisions enjoy.

Hereford and Torquay have small, but extremely loyal fan bases that must be shaking their collective heads in bemusement at this decision.

Finally, another question that needs answering is; why Torquay were docked only one point and Hereford three for what was effectively the same ‘crime’? Maybe the suits at the FA are taking lessons in consistency from some of their referees.