Savage was (and is) a complete twat, but he generally knew exactly where the line was. He rarely went in as badly as that Sane tackle, as he knew he could get sent off for doing it. Dived, hacked, spoiled, whined, wound up and cheated his arse off, but only ever got sent off once, IIRC. Horrible little hairdresser.
But something is wrong, seriously! Spitting - 6 match ban Potential career ending horror tackle - yellow card!
Yep. This was being debated on TalkSport's Jim White Show, today. It was interesting, actually. Danny Murphy took Jim White and quite a few callers to task, but telling them all to get "a grip" about spitting being the "most despicable thing one human being could do to another" (as one caller put it). Murphy said that, as a pro footballer, if it came to being spat at or having his leg broken (or any other serious, potentially career-ending injury), he'd take being spat at, all day long!
I get your point and it does seem counter-intuitive but they look at spitting as bringing the whole sport into disrepute hence it is treated more severely than an isolated player on player incident. Personally I think West Ham bring the entire sport into disrepute but that's another discussion for another time...
Can’t disagree with your second point. I feel very strongly about the first one, however. That kind of deliberately dangerous tackle would attract a significant ban in RFU. The same should be the case in football, imo. Or do we wait until a top player like Sane has his career terminated by some second rate thug?
The thing with spitting is that there can be absolutely no doubt that the assault (for that is exactly what it is, in law) is intentional. With horror tackles, it is very difficult to say, for certain, that the intention of the defender is to injure the player - it could be recklessness. Clearly, if it were to be established that one player jumps into a tackle with the intention of breaking another player's legs, that must be viewed as being as reprehensible as spitting. Danny Murphy made the point that both spitting and reckless/dangerous tackles should be severely punished, but that it was ridiculous to treat spitting as being the more heinous. Take your point, though @Citizen Kane
I agree. They're just totally different classes of offense so I think comparing the two is pointless. Take for example when Count Suarezula racially abused Evra and got an 8 or 10 game ban...didn't injure the Frenchman, who probably took all of 10 minutes to 'recover' from the shock of hearing insults he's probably been hearing since the playground. The crime touches a completely different nerve.
One of my mates at school had a nasty habit of gobbing in people's faces. I'm trying to work out how he didn't get the crap kicked out of him more often, really...
Then Murphy is spot on. Spitting is disgusting. And it quite rightly is treated as a serious offence. But where’s the perspective? So is a highly reckless, and that’s being kind, tackle, that in this case has put a player out for a month, but could very easily have been far worse!
It is ridiculous that that tackle got the same punishment as a guy taking his shirt off for scoring the winning goal. There is a case for totally restructuring the punishments handed out by the FA and by the match officials.
We have had almost the same scenarios over here in the A league. A couple of months ago in the match between Sydney FC & Brisbane , a Brisbane player gobbed at a Sydney player. The ref didn't see it but the VAR did - he got sent off which is automatically a 2 match ban, later the match review committee added another 6 to the ban. Also in the weekend just gone Brisbane player Corey Gameiro was nearly cut in half by a Central Coast player in a blatant shin high tackle was automatically sent off, a 2 match ban. But this time the match review committee decided the send off was sufficient. So as every one has said spitting is disgusting, but a bad tackle can end a career. The authorities don't seem to agree
With the amount of ‘gobbing’ that goes on in every match, it’s a miracle there isn’t more collateral damage!!
Like Ledley King/ Rory Delap? I think a 6 match ban for spitting isn't enough unless the player on the receiving end is allowed to lump the offender without any comeback. And in this namby-pamby day and age that is unlikely to happen. Perhaps I should have been a ref. However, 2 matches for a potential career ending tackle is also nowhere near enough. The offender should be banned for the same time the injured player is out plus 5 matches. That might just cut these type of tackles out.
If Rochdale go through...I fancy going to the game(if we get past Newport) Tickets be easy enough to get?
