Keep on sending your complaints lads. These people need to hear and listen to the voice of the righteous and moral football fans.
That rant at the FA felt so good. Uncovered every dubious decision and show of incompetence this season and rammed it in their faces. I should do that more often.
Some absolutely terrible decisions have been made this weekend, I'm at a loss with it all to be honest, I think the majority of football fans will be horrified at the shady stance taken by the FA. Balotellis foul was intended and reckless, he could have ended Songs career, because it went unchecked he continued to behave recklessly throughout the game. As far as I'm concerned Derry committed no offence, results of games can not be changed, but the FA had a chance to rescind the red card, but curiously chose not to. We all mention lack of consistency by the referees, until we resolve this issue, we'll continue to have incidents like this.
Complaint sent for all the good it will do. But all we footballl fans should bombard the FA and complain about these terrible decisons that condone cheating (eg Young) and acceptance of career threatening tackles (eg Balotelli). Taking banners to games as I have seen proposed on here is also a good idea.
Done! "Dear FA, I am writing to you today to complain about how disappointed I am with the FA's decision to uphold Shaun Derrys red card. How on earth can you uphold it when, firstly, the cheating player 'Young' was offside, as Sky Sports footage shows and secondly 'Young' suddenly fell to the ground when four fingers were simply placed on the side of his shirt. You are making football a joke and even more so the FA are already a joke. Stop favouring the big teams and start being fair! It's all we want."
Maybe so, but with no sky, there's no money explosion, no massive power to the big clubs, and no means to instill fear in the officials, who will never feel the need to give anything but the correct call either way. They'll still get things wrong, but those wrong things WOULD even out for everyone.
30 years ago there were only a handful of divers in the league, there wasnt rampant cheating in the game and refs werent sending people off for fair tackles. The only way to get the game back is to get rid of the top clubs into a Euro league and abandon the FA and go back to the old football league with a complete overhaul of the whole system. video replays, salary and ticket price cap, punishment for diving etc
I'd like to see an independant panel that assess all red cards post match and decide 0,1,2 or 3 game ban etc so the punishment fits the crime. They also deal with any post match contentious issues like the Balotelli one. That way we may get some sense back in the game.
The trouble is that an independent panel is only as independent as it's allowed to be - in the case of the FA anyway. The panel that upheld Derry's red card was "independent"! So one arm of the FA condones the officiating by upholding the ban, while another arm, the one that oversees refereeing relegates Mason to the lower leagues for the first time in about 6 months. What an utter, utter nonsense. Until these people are accountable to organistions/bodies other than themselves nothing will change.
On a side note guys, Sky sports have been running low level stories about controversial refereeing decisions throughout the day, Mr Al Fayed of Fulham, (refrain comment please) has made a formal complaint to the FA, about refereeing standards, it will certainly help raise the profile, it all helps, good look to a fair play for all campaign!
Have added my complaint to the FA about the Derry red card not being rescinded. Wouldn't it be great to have a representative of the FA panel interviewed weekly on Football Focus trying to explain the thought process that led to the latest lamentable decision of the week. Perhaps Jeremy Paxman or Andrew Marr could be brought in to do the interview? That would be worth watching...
The response from the FA to my complaint! Thank you for contacting The Football Association. In relation to the Commission’s decision regarding Shaun Derry, the ability to submit a claim of wrongful dismissal is an exceptional facility that allows Clubs to challenge the dismissal of a player when a serious and obvious error has taken place. Under guidelines from FIFA a Regulatory Commission must apply the test of whether a serious and obvious error has taken place. The Club has to submit clear and conclusive evidence that a wrongful dismissal has taken place. When such evidence is inconclusive the Regulatory Commission has no alternative but to dismiss the claim. Retrospective action in relation to the incident involving Mario Balotelli of Manchester City and Alex Song of Arsenal, which occurred in the 20th minute of Sunday’s game, will not be taken. Where at least one of the officials has seen the coming together of players retrospective action is not taken, regardless of whether they have seen the full extent of the challenge. Retrospective action can only be taken in scenarios where none of the Match Officials saw the players coming together. The normal scenarios in which retrospective action is taken are for ‘off the ball’ incidents. Retrospective action was introduced for off the ball incidents where there was no contest for possession and could not be deemed to be re-refereeing an incident. In agreement with FIFA, this is how ‘not seen’ incidents are dealt with retrospectively in England. It is a policy that is agreed with all football stakeholders. Kind regards Gary Stonehouse | Customer Relations Communications Division The FA Group Wembley Stadium, Wembley, London, HA9 0WS Postal address: Wembley Stadium, PO Box 1966, London, SW1P 9EQ T +44 (0) 845 458 1966 | F+44 (0) 844 980 0666 | www.TheFA.com, www.wembleystadium.com
Another crazy rule that they cant overule a terrible decision like the Balotelli leg breaker on Song. Why not just chance the rules? They managed to do it with Thatcher on Mendes with that vicious elbow so why not with every violent act?
Have added my complaint, a three page long letter! Wont make any difference i am sure, but it certainly made me feel a hell of alot better!!!!