If Luis Suárez is feeling hard done to at the moment, he could do worse than take note of PFA chief Gordon Taylor’s reaction. Taylor always appears to come out in defence of his members when they are under attack – but not this time. He has even criticised the Uruguayan.
Suárez’s refusal to shake Evra’s hand on Saturday (on the back of Wayne Bridge refusing to shake John Terry’s hand and the decision to scrap hand-shaking at the recent QPR v Chelsea game), makes we wonder what the point of it is anyway.
Surely it would be better to leave it until the end of the game and allow players to use their own discretion? Minutes before the game the players are about to go into ‘battle’ and aren’t in a bonhomie frame of mind anyway. They are more likely to be thinking of ways to kick the opposition up in the air at that point!
I may be wrong (I often am), but I seem to recall that this pre-match ritual was introduced and insisted on by a certain Sepp Blatter at FIFA.
You can’t force respect on anyone. It needs to be earned and so with the best will in the world, insisting that two grown men shake hands won’t bring about a sudden change of heart if they don’t feel that respect for each other anyway.
I've set up this blog (Monday-Friday) to give extra coverage to teams I cover for the national press. Any views and opinions are all my own. Best wishes, Jeff. Follow me on Twitter and I'll update you each time I blog. http://twitter.com/JeffTaplin P.S. During the summer break I reserve the right to ramble on about anything and everything!
Hey Jeff, haven't read your blog for a while but with a load of Bristol City stuff on today I thought I would reply.
ReplyDeleteHandshakes, I think they should stay, of all the league matches since they introduced the handshakes there have been problems in 3 matches, 46 games per week times by the number of seasons this has been introduced, I reckon you're looking at figure of 1 in 2000 games??
Still the point is the problems have only arisen, twice because of problems that John Terry has instigated and another by the ill judged Saurez. I would much rather have a debate about why those two individuals are causing problems than a debate about a system which doesn't have a problem at any other times.
If players can't behave then frankly no monetary punishment can be given to alter their attitudes, so I would like an alternative punishment, something like that the disciplined player has to hold the hand of the referee after the handshakes and is not allowd to join his team until the referee blows his whistle for the start of the match. Might be out of position for the start of the match and the cameras are all pointing in his direction but tough!
Onto City's game last night, Zaha looked excellent last night and fair play to the lad, looked threatening all night long and won't be playing in the Championship next season that's for sure.
How did you view the referee, 7 yellow cards to City players, when all I can remember is a poor challenge from the Boro loanee and Skuse for continual fouling. Penalty didnt seem right either, thought Fontaine was fouled several times in the lead up to the penalty and the referee thought it was six of one and half a dozen fo the other and waved play on, until the linesman obviously got frustrated as the rest of the crowd at the way he was refereeing and flagged for a penalty.
Haven't seen the goals back for Pitman, did the freekick go throught he wall?
Cheers
Geoff
Hi Geoff. Love the idea of the player having to hold the referee's hand!
ReplyDeleteThe Palace game; yeah, I thought Zaha was superb. I asked David James for his opinion afterwards and all he said was "He scored" and smiled. Maybe my question came too soon after the game :-)
Several of us were questionuing the referee's decisions. It was by no stretch of the imagination a dirty game and I think a booking for both sides would have been abbout right.
For the penalty, I think that the ref allowed the linesman to overrule him. The ref was in the better position and in line with the incident and even the Palace lad looked surprised to be given it. I felt that the ball had long gone before he tripped over Liam Fontaine and I understand why the City skipper was fuming.
From the angle I was at, I couldn't be certain whether Pittman's free kick went through or past the wall, but he's certainly got an eye for goal hasn't he?
A few of the backroom staff were wondering aloud whether this result might just kick-start a little run for the club. I hope so. Nopw Pompey have been deducted ten points, the pressure is off a little, but frankly a club of City's size shouldn't be looking over its shoulder anyway. Off to the other side of Brizzle tomorrow. Good luck at Posh.