Has to be a ban surely? If a player had done that people would be baying for their blood. Managers are supposed to set an example. Nothing against Pardew but the FA must surely take some action?
It was pretty innocuous but when the FA have given heavy punishments to players in the past(as pointed out). So they have to put up some financial punishment. Interesting Pardew tried some convoluted excuse in his initial post match interviews before reverting to straight apology
What annoyed me was that Pardew found the incident "comical". Nothing funny about pushing an assistant referee.
I thought it was pretty funny... But yeah he should be punished. It wasn't exactly a full on "push" though. Just one of those one's where you are so frustrated you just do something without really thinking. You could see he instantly thought "Oh **** what did I do that for"
It was more just a light pat on the back, and the 4th official made the most of it. I reckon some action needs to be taken against him as well, or this trend of officials simulating injury in an attempt to get players sent off will continue.
He pushed the assistant referee, not the 4th official, but I think it was the 4th official who brought the incident to the referee's attention.
the incident was all over a poxy throw in - not as if it was over a bad tackle or disallowed goal. not that that makes it any worse or better but mr pardew you will want to be remembered for your good managerial record, not all the incidents that are building up in your history
Just realised watching the interview that i've never really noticed Pardew smile before. And the smile disappears instantly when they go on to talk abnout the game. Its almost like the smile is calculated one to make light of the situation. Or maybe i'm just reading into it too much :-D
It's not a matter of injury. It's the fact that Pardew showed a complete lack of respect towards an official. He's got to be punished for it. Not funny.
It was kinda funny. Yes, it's a punishable offense, but it's a bit of a silly one and it's nothing to get so militant about. No one got hurt, and there was never any risk of anyone getting hurt, so there's no need to take it so seriously. Pardew apologised and laughed it off as he rightly should.
I'm taking it seriously because I'm a referee myself and I'm fed up with referees not being shown the respect they deserve. He is not setting a good example, thousands of kids would have seen him push the assistant and they will think it's alright to push the referee and will do so the following morning. That's why Pardew's reaction really annoyed me. He just laughed it off which makes it seem that it's fine to push referee's around - which it's not.
Yeah, because he got a huge ban. The FA threw the book at him and therefore make the statement that what Di Canio did was completely unacceptable.
