UEFA throws credibility out the window

Roar Guru

By Freud of Football, 17 Sep 2009 Freud of Football is a Roar Guru

Tagged:: Arsenal, diving in football, EPL, football, gordon smith, UEFA, wenger, World Football

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By overturning Eduardo’s two match ban for diving, UEFA and Michel Platini have made a mockery of themselves while setting yet another dangerous precedent: handing even more power to Europe’s top clubs.

It is a joke.

Even the most fervent Arsenal supporter I know said it was a dive. In fact, he was quite disgusted.

It seems everyone except for Wenger and a few Arsenal old-boys were applauding UEFA for taking a tough stance on diving.

And let’s get it straight, that’s what this WAS about. It was UEFA doing something positive that the fans wanted. It was good for football.

This wasn’t about Arsenal, Wenger, Eduardo or English football, it was about diving, but now it’s all politics, power and back-room skullduggery.

Why else would UEFA, after calls from the media and SPL chief Gordon Smith, go ahead and act against Eduardo only to rescind the decision a few weeks later?

Why would UEFA General Inspector Gerhard Kapl write on behalf of UEFA in his prosecution notes that Eduardo’s conduct was “gross unsporting behaviour” and an “obvious dive,” only for UEFA to change their stance which is now;

“Following examination of all the evidence, notably the declarations of both the referee and the referees’ assessor, as well as the various video footage, it was not established to the panel’s satisfaction that the referee had been deceived in taking his decision on the penalty.”

Seeing the incident live, I wasn’t sure.

So perhaps awarding a penalty is a mistake we could live with, but after a replay or two there was no doubt: Boruc did not make contact with Eduardo. To now say the referees think the replays are inconclusive, it’s obvious UEFA forcefully hinted what their new stance on the matter was.

Why else would the UEFA General Inspector come out in the first place with such a condemning statement claiming Eduardo received a penalty “through the act of cheating” if UEFA didn’t really mean it and have the backing of the referees?

They had days to analyse it before they made anything official, so they obviously would have conferred with each other and made sure they were all in the same boat, only for the match officials to jump overboard, with a push from UEFA.

Who knows what leverage Arsenal had. As far as I know, no new camera angles have come to light and the evidence that is available is quite damning.

In my opinion, as a neutral, it was a dive. In my friend’s opinion, as a Gooner, it was also a dive. And to begin with, it was also an opinion that UEFA shared with us.

But no more.

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The Crowd Says (10) | Page 1 of Comments

Ben W said | September 17th 2009 @ 8:46am | Report comment

I am a Gooner and also agree that it clearly was a dive, but to be honest UEFA lost credibility when they charged Eduardo in the first place. Prior too and since Eduardo players have been diving and yet out of the blue Eduardo is charged for the offence and slapped with a ban. More appropriate would have been for UEFA to publicly condemn Eduardo. Yes no ban, but as most real football fans know Ronaldo is a diver and now Eduardo will wear that tag as well. The ban was always destined to fail because UEFA were writing the rules as it happened. The appeal exposed that and as such Eduardo gets off, but his reputation will never be the same.

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FIsher Price said | September 17th 2009 @ 9:12am | Report comment

Rubbish. Either the sanctions be brought in across the board or not all; UEFA must be willing to open the can of worms and punish all divers. With the Eduardo incident, the intervention was swayed by Scottish FA and media pressure – not UEFA demostrating its intention to get tough on all simulation.

There have been countless acts of simulation since Eduardo’s one incident, yet we are still going on about this one merely because UEFA (under pressure) picked it out of the hat and handed down a hasty ban without thinking of its wider repercussions.

Quite embarrassing for them.

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jack said | September 17th 2009 @ 3:24pm | Report comment

did eduardo invent the dive? from peoples reaction since it happened you would have thought so. this has been going on for too long now, uefa shouldn’t have charged him in the first place and they knew it. it’s time to move on people.

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Greg Russell said | September 17th 2009 @ 4:30pm | Report comment

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a Gooner?

My understanding is that Arsenal have been able to come up with evidence to back Eduardo’s claim that the keeper had contact with him. If this is true, I would comment that it sets a very dangerous precedent: EUFA is basically saying that any contact, no matter how slight, is justification for falling over. I do not think that is a dead-end street down which football should want to go.

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- Freud of Football said | September 17th 2009 @ 4:55pm | Report comment
  
  Come on Greg, we all know how to Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooner
  
  I have not read anywhere the Arsenal had new information, admitedly I wrote this about 6 hours after it broke.
  
  All I read was that Arsenal compiled a 19-page dossier on the incident, they certainly don’t have any camera angles that weren’t available at the time as there was no overhead camera which is probably the only one that might have convinced me of Eduardo’s innocence and apart from that, what information can they possibly have that goes against the video evidence.
  
  The only thing they could have that the football world at large would accept would be testimony from Artur Boruc saying he did feel like he bought the player down unfairly – this he clearly didn’t.
  
  You are right in what UEFA is more or less saying “that any contact, no matter how slight, is justification for falling over” – I mentioned this in a comment on Davidde Corran’s piece on the same issue yesterday.
  
  When was the last time you saw a player be awarded a penalty while still standing? It just doesn’t happen. Referees don’t like to give penalties and it seems that if a player stays on his feet it is justification for the referee not to act, again the Welbeck incident against Everton last year in the FA Cup Semi Final is the perfect incident to go back to. It was a clear penalty and if Welbeck had of hit the deck he would have surely gotten a spot kick, he didn’t and United went on to lose the game.
  
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  - Greg Russell said | September 18th 2009 @ 1:26pm | Report comment
    
    Sometimes I get sick of googling … I thought it might be more fun to get an “informal” answer. (I’ve done it now.)
    
    I saw a comment where you wrote that you live in Germany. I lived in Germany 1991-4, and will do so again in 2010 (both times in Göttingen, in case you are interested – the local joke was that their team has 05 in its name for a reason!). There were few divers in the Bundesliga 1991-4, and often penalties were awarded to players still standing. But obviously times have changed even in Germany …
    
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Grobbelaar said | September 17th 2009 @ 6:36pm | Report comment

As soon as the big European clubs leave UEFA, Platini and his cronies behind, the better off we’ll all be.

Having UEFA there is a little bit like a rural newspaper telling Murdoch what to do.

We’ve outgrown UEFA.

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grahamcreid said | September 18th 2009 @ 12:30am | Report comment

As soon as you receive a red card for a dive, and for such incidents you can use a video ref, then people will stop diving. A couple of weeks of nine-a-side will soon make sure football players aren’t such pathetic pansies!

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sam.gilbert said | September 18th 2009 @ 1:37am | Report comment

i agree, there have been so many other instances of diving that UEFA cannot charge Eduardo unless they intend to make it a precedent and ban all players in similar instances. i think UEFA recognised that it would become a tricky situation and be difficult to maintain consistency, and so did a total about-turn. what a joke. it was clearly a dive- no camera angles could have disproved that, and UEFA are either fooling themselves or lying to save face, i expect the latter. despite it being a dive i do not believe he should have been charged in the first place, obviously because they wouldnt charge other players in less high profile games and so would not have consistency. if they wish to set a precedent, then fine, there always has to be first, and to maintain their credibility they shouldve set the precedent with this incident (despite us all having to put up with those whinging gooners going on and on and on and on…). as it is, they have shown themselves to be a joke of an organisation, or, at the very least, they have made a massive error in judgement.

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- Freud of Football said | September 18th 2009 @ 4:00am | Report comment
  
  UEFA needed to make this a precedent, obviously they couldn’t just pick Eduardo out and think diving would stop but you’re missing the point. UEFA’s ban was the correct thing, that they didn’t want to open a can of worms well that’s a different matter entirely, they had enough time to consider their options and they decided to proceed with a ban, once that was official they needed to stick to that and yes they would have copped flak for it as inevitably inconsistencies would have arisen, however.
  
  Having taken that stand they would have been commended, instead they folded and are now a as you said, “a joke of an organisation”, casual football fans probably won’t care but those who care about the game, not just a team and especially those who are a fan of various codes have cringed at their backflip and the worst thing is, everyone knows we just have to swallow it because there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it.
  
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